Cherry Pie Crit-45+ 1/2/3
CoreTechs Team: Devon Joos (9th)/Eric Saltzman (3rd)/Jerome Nadel (4th)
Report by Eric
Cherry Pie is the traditional kick off to "real" criterium racing season in Northern CA. It is a pretty standard industrial park criterium with an extra dogleg thrown in to make it more interesting. The dogleg is uphill to the finish line, which comes right before a 180 degree corner aiming you back down the hill and into a fast right turn. The course then curves to the left, and makes two actual left hand turns putting you more or less onto the straight leading into the uphill to the line. I say more or less because there is a slight chicane right before you start going up the hill. The hill is not very steep and reminds me of the uphill going through the maze in Woodside right before you make the turn onto Olive Hill heading towards Canada Rd.
As is now tradition in our house, Jason and I went up the night before and stayed in the hotel right on the course because his first race was at 8:40. My wife got the soccer tournament in Woodland so I definitely got the better deal on this one.
After sending the obligatory emails to my racing friends on the East Coast wishing them a good day digging out their driveways and pointing out that I was going to be racing in 60 degree weather in a few hours, I helped Jason get ready for his race. This included the obligatory parental story about spending Februarys riding through snow up to my hubs when I was his age.
Daryoush, Devon, Jerome and I lined up for 40 minutes of fun in the 45+ race. It was a solid field with Hammer Nutrition bringing its full team (except Cale who doesn't do crits unless in a stage race), Specialized with Craig Roemer and Kevin Metcalfe (both with National Championship jerseys in their closets), and Patrick Briggs from the new Prime Alliance team being the primary players (in addition to CoreTech).
The race itself was pretty straight forward. No break got any significant daylight although I did bridge to a couple just to be safe. With three laps to go I moved up to the front and slotted into third wheel behind Dirk and Hunter from Hammer Nutrition as they set up their lead out for Steve Heaton. I stayed third wheel for the next two and a half laps and then let Steve slide in front of me with half a lap to go. This was the perfect place to be coming into the sprint.
While the Hammer Nutrition team was keeping the pace high, it was not super fast and I kept expecting someone else to come up and challenge their lead out. For a brief time I was concerned that their train would peter out too soon and we would get swarmed. Fortunately, Steve must have had the same thought because he launched the sprint very early. I could not match his initial jump. It turned out to be a long drag race sprint and I ended up third (forth if you count Larry Nolan who won the 55+ that was picked separately).
We looked really good as a team and where always well represented at the front end of the field.
Eric
As is now tradition in our house, Jason and I went up the night before and stayed in the hotel right on the course because his first race was at 8:40. My wife got the soccer tournament in Woodland so I definitely got the better deal on this one.
After sending the obligatory emails to my racing friends on the East Coast wishing them a good day digging out their driveways and pointing out that I was going to be racing in 60 degree weather in a few hours, I helped Jason get ready for his race. This included the obligatory parental story about spending Februarys riding through snow up to my hubs when I was his age.
Daryoush, Devon, Jerome and I lined up for 40 minutes of fun in the 45+ race. It was a solid field with Hammer Nutrition bringing its full team (except Cale who doesn't do crits unless in a stage race), Specialized with Craig Roemer and Kevin Metcalfe (both with National Championship jerseys in their closets), and Patrick Briggs from the new Prime Alliance team being the primary players (in addition to CoreTech).
The race itself was pretty straight forward. No break got any significant daylight although I did bridge to a couple just to be safe. With three laps to go I moved up to the front and slotted into third wheel behind Dirk and Hunter from Hammer Nutrition as they set up their lead out for Steve Heaton. I stayed third wheel for the next two and a half laps and then let Steve slide in front of me with half a lap to go. This was the perfect place to be coming into the sprint.
While the Hammer Nutrition team was keeping the pace high, it was not super fast and I kept expecting someone else to come up and challenge their lead out. For a brief time I was concerned that their train would peter out too soon and we would get swarmed. Fortunately, Steve must have had the same thought because he launched the sprint very early. I could not match his initial jump. It turned out to be a long drag race sprint and I ended up third (forth if you count Larry Nolan who won the 55+ that was picked separately).
We looked really good as a team and where always well represented at the front end of the field.
Eric
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