Menlo Park GP Report-By Chris Scheetz

Masters 45+ 1,2,3,4 Also had the 55+ guys in the race
The entire field was 50+
I did this race with Devon

This crit is theoretically about as safe as a course can be for a crit, wide roads, turns, couple long straights, overall a mile + in lenght, but then you throw in the "x" factor and anything can happen, see Mark Foster report.

Devon and I set ourselves at the line for the start. Looking around, there were quite a few SJ and Webcor guys in the group. At the whistle, the pace was brisk, but nothing severe. Given SJ and Webcor had such large numbers in this race, they were the ones that kept launching attacks on the first long stretch, which btw, had a good head wind. The peleton would stretch out, then the guy(s) up front would do a dramatic swing to the right or left, depending on which side of the road the group was on so the group would do this big serpentine motion. You just needed to pay attention to the folks around you. The race was pretty benign for the most part, but the pace high, we averaged 25+ mph. The most technical part of the course was a quick left to a quick right hand turn to the start/finish line so if you wanted to be in the money, you had to be well positioned in the group before you went into that section. With 5 laps to go, the pace picked up, with 2, the pace really picked up so jockying for position was tedious. On the final lap the group was still pretty tight and as you can imagine, those who made it to the quick left/right turns were invited to the drag race to the finish. Devon was up front, I was mid-pack. At the line Devon placed 4th for the CAT 3's and I placed 5th for the CAT 4's (28th overall).

Chris