Lindsey Wilson Crit

The road race on Saturday was fun and it was great to race again, but I'd known all winter that the crit was going to be my target for the weekend. This lead to some weird emotions as we were lining up. Saturday I had no expectations or pressure since I knew the climbs would get to me eventually, but Sunday I knew I wanted to win and believed this was a reasonable expectation.

Lindsey Wilson's crit course made for some pretty fast racing. It was really only 3 corners, with none of them being incredibly sharp. The only real things of note were a steep little kicker hill going through the 3rd corner and heading back towards the finish and some cross winds. Course map below:

No, I didn't ride through the grass, just some gps drift.

As a whole the crit was pretty uneventful for the first 40 or so minutes. The guy that won in a solo break Saturday went off the front again. A group of 3 tried to get away as well, but the field organized and brought them back. With 5 or so laps to go it became pretty apparent that the guy in the break was going to win and make it a double win weekend, both in solo breaks. Me thinks its time for someone to upgrade.....

Coming up the little hill in the 3rd corner.

Anyway, with about 2 laps to go we got ourselves organized and made a nice little Michigan train. Danny was up front, then Stephen, then me. Stephen was going to be my leadout guy, meaning that he was going to turn himself inside out in order for me to be positioned well for the final sprint. This little plan went better than we could have ever expected, and then some.

With 1 to go our train was locked and loaded. However, the pack unexpectedly sat up on the back stretch when it hit the crosswind. Everyone was trying to play cat and mouse for the sprint and no one wanted to work on the front. A gap opened on the left and I yelled, "Just go around it all!" to Stephen. We were way further from the line than we ideally wanted to be, but the move presented itself and we couldn't turn it down. Stephen blasted around everyone with me right on his wheel and we were sitting in 2nd and 3rd with about half a lap to go. Being on the front allowed us to chose our own lines and hit that 3rd corner hill at full gas, losing no momentum and not having to touch the brakes. 

The final sprint! The gap was more decisive than it looks from this angle.

After cresting the hill we accelerated again for the final drag race to the finish. I looked under my arm to see who I'd be sprinting against and found a nice surprise. No one was there. Stephen's leadout had opened up a pretty sizeable gap on the field. I yelled to him to keep going to the finish and then kicked around him to start my sprint. I knew I pretty much had 2nd in the bag barring a Cavendish like sprint from someone in the field, but I couldn't let up.

Eventually the finish line came. I crossed 2nd, Stephen managed to stay on for 3rd, and Danny was able to see our move and latch on to snag 4th. Teamwork at its finest. Results from top 20 below:

Such teamwork. Wow.

The women's B team had a great crit too as Cat and Kayla grabbed 2nd and 3rd respectively. So we managed to grab 4/6 collegiate B podiums spots. Not bad. 

Overall it was definitely a successful weekend for the team. I can't remember grabbing so many podiums and top 5's in a race weekend like that last year, especially in the upper categories. Sadly it was time to say goodbye to the warm weather, load up the vans, and head back to Michigan.

Go team!