Well this was first ever bike race, a few weeks ago I didn't even know what "Criterium" meant, but had been ensured it's fast and furious and a lot of fun. So I found out it's a race around a loop course, sometimes with points every 5 laps. My division (4 or Cat 4 in the lingo..) was 10 laps of a 1.6km course, no pints just first over the line wins. Being a crappy triathlete bike handler not used to riding in packs I was worried about crashing - Vanessa didn't enter because of the same worry. My Team Niseko cycling mates and my tri coach both told me to wait until after the 5th lap and try to make a break. There were about 40 odd in our race, but a group of 7 of us took off and stayed in a pack for the first 6 laps. I never went to the lead and was always last man, they prob didn't even know I was there.
I decided to go with 2 and a half laps and got luck the guys ahead all got banked up on a small rise, and I went for it, hamerring away with my head down for about 30 second, turned around and no-one was there. Nice. But next lap the counter showed 3. Damn I thought there were 2 laps to go - and wasn't sure I could hold them off for 3 laps it was pretty windy so much easier in a group. Anyway tried not to look back and did the last 3 laps in front and won by 5 seconds. The only thing was there was actually two laps t go, the lap counter didn't see me make the break, and I did one too many laps! Didn't even get a checkered flag moment! Felt a bit sheepish coming back after the mix-up.
Overall greta to win and it'll probably be the first and last race I ever win - this game is not like soccer or Rugby when you get to win every other time or more if you're lucky. My lap speed ended up being faster than the Cat 3, so I'll go up to that division for the Tour De Hokkaido road race and see how I fare there.
Now back into Triathlons.
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