Friday I raced in Goshen, Indiana. The atmosphere was awesome. The town has a festival the first Friday of every month. Local businesses set up shop outside and thousands of people show up. The 1/2/3 race started at 8 pm, so it was a twilight crit. The course was four corners, very safe, wide open, and fast. I stayed up front through the start since many of the riders had raced earlier in the 3s and were opening up gaps.
As you'd expect, attacks flew off the front. About 15 minutes in I started to go with them since I sensed that one would stick. After one group got a solid gap, I counterattacked immediately. Unfortunately I was pulled back right away, and the guys that countered THAT one stuck. They built a solid gap of 10 to 15 seconds.
I thought it was over but around the halfway mark a guy tried to bridge so I grabbed his wheel. He did a great job pulling for two straightaways, but when it was my turn to pull through I gapped him and accidentally lost him. I kept going, and gave it my all. I closed the gap to within ten yards. I was about to catch them around the second corner, so I blasted through the turn as fast as I could. Unfortunately, at this point I was completely cross-eyed, and I forgot there was a sewer cap in the apex of the turn. For some reason I swerved inside to avoid it, which turned out to be a sidewalk. I was going way too fast to bring it back under control, and I shot off the course onto somebody's lawn. I took my free lap and hopped back in. I sincerely hope that was the stupidest thing I did all day since I took a final exam earlier...and if I did anything dumber on that test I probably failed out of school.
I did plenty of pulling since I'd given up trying to bridge at that point. A few late attacks went and I followed, but I ended up in the field sprint. The race wasn't really fast enough to fight for position with three to go, so I waited until the last lap to move up. I ended up somewhere in the top ten in the sprint. Frustrating race for me, compounded by my own errors. At least my legs are starting to come around.
