Round and Round

The weekend of racing involved a lot of going around in circles. On Saturday was the Louisville/Rocky Mounts Crit which has approximately 1.5 corners on the course with a gradual rise along the backside. It is one of my favorites, mostly because I did well last year. Sunday was the Longmont Crit which at 90 minutes on a short course you either get bored or dizzy after a while.

Saturday got a little bit silly because of some pre-race negotiations gone wrong, but the break got away early like last year, hovered at around 40 seconds until the field whittled it down to about 12 seconds. I spent the entire time watching Jon Tarkington, knowing he'd be likely to jump across. The second I took my eye off of him he was across! Come the end of the race, I found myself a little too far back to really do anything in the sprint and that was that.

Sunday was an exercise in moving around in the group, pulling some things back, pulling some unnecessarily, working on better positioning, only to dump the best opportunity of the day. With about three laps to go, the pace dropped slightly and I put in an effort to leave my spot in the back half of the bunch. I saw another riding moving up the left side and by the time we both got off the front, I was able to get on his wheel. In about a lap we made it to the remnants of the lead group which had called it quits at that point. Instead of forging ahead, I made the mistake of sitting up at that group and the field swarmed back around . . . back to the back of the pack. Again, in the wrong spot to sprint, I didn't do much results wise. Teammates Kevin and Randy stuffed themselves into the top 20 quite nicely though. There were the usual crashes in the race and a lot of tire blowouts.

Imagine what would happen if this one had a blowout . . . the dog in the milk crate (not wearing a helmet either) would go flying.


Ah, Sunday afternoons in the Cherry Creek area are always amusing. I also noticed this weekend that color samples were up across the street and my worst nightmares are confirmed. Vomit green is going to be the stucco color. Take your pick:


Any way you slice it, it isn't going to be pretty. At least for a day, my daylilies provide a lovely distraction. They have finally got their act together and put out some flowers. Too bad they only last for a day.