Steveston Sockeye Spin
Posted: Mon Aug 16, 2010 2:46 pm
Yesterday I headed over to the mainland for the crit in Steveston. There was a bunch of people from the island in all the races, Raph Lalumiere, James Cameron, Doug Doyle and Alex Hui were in my race, Shailie Sanbrooks in the women’s and Vaughn Hildebrand was in the men’s 1/2. I thought I was the only person from Tripleshot there until I saw another guy who I had never seen before wearing one of the grey and argyle kits, turns out he had lived in Victoria for a couple years and riding with TS but had since moved back to Vancouver.
This was my first bigger race and I thought cat 4 was racing by its self however there weren’t enough people so they combined the race with cat 3 which made me a little more nervous. As I am sure anyone who did N2V knows it was a REALLY HOT day to be riding in and to add to that Steveston doesn’t have a lot of shade. The course was sort of strange it was 900 meters with two really long straights making the other sides super short which made the jockeying for position interesting. I believe there were 35 starters and ten primes in 35 minutes + 3 laps of racing equaled out to about a prime every three laps and made sure the field was constantly braking up.
The race started off pretty quick but slowed down by about the third lap. After corner two on lap 5 I decided I need to move up and hitched a ride from another guy thinking the same thing. As I got near the front everything was pretty tight with no room to get in, so before I was actually at the very front I increased speed and decided I was just going to go for a little attack, one guy from La Bicicletta tried to follow but ended up in no mans land. As I went past the finish line the prime bell went signaling a $50 cash prime so I decided to stick with it knowing what ever happened I would have $50. So I did another lap solo won the prime then let the La Bicicletta guy who was just behind catch up so we could work together. We did two laps together and then another guy bridged up to us because there was another prime coming up (which he won). Two more laps with the new guy before the pack finally caught us. I think I was off the front for close to ten minutes. Perhaps not the smartest thing to do in a pack of cat 3's but I still had fun doing it.
The corners were all sort of sketchy and I think there were two single person crashes (both behind me) and I managed to stay in the front half for the majority of the race. However with a bout 5 minutes to go before the 3 final laps I had a nearly disastrous moment. I was the farthest outside going into turn three and as I started my turn the guy beside me on the inside started swinging out. I attempted to protect my steering but he bumped my elbow which started me wobbling. As that was happening my pedal hit the ground hard and my back wheel hoped up and sideways, once my wheels was on the ground again I was headed straight for the hay bail and just managed to narrowly avoid it. During that whole thing I lost about 5 or 6 spots but the adrenaline kicked in and I moved straight to the front with out any perceived effort. but by the last lap I was somewhere near the middle again In the last lap everyone’s elbows got higher and two guys even had somewhat of a head butting battle. In the final sprint I managed to pass two or three people and not get passed by anyone else.
Not only was the island present but it didn’t do too bad either. Raph was second James was third Doug was somewhere in the top 10 I was about 15 and Alex was just behind me Shailie was second in the women’s and Vaughn lasted quite a while in the Cat 1/2 race where only about 10 out of 25 finished.
Defiantly fun to do a bigger race and looking forward to do bunch more next year!
This was my first bigger race and I thought cat 4 was racing by its self however there weren’t enough people so they combined the race with cat 3 which made me a little more nervous. As I am sure anyone who did N2V knows it was a REALLY HOT day to be riding in and to add to that Steveston doesn’t have a lot of shade. The course was sort of strange it was 900 meters with two really long straights making the other sides super short which made the jockeying for position interesting. I believe there were 35 starters and ten primes in 35 minutes + 3 laps of racing equaled out to about a prime every three laps and made sure the field was constantly braking up.
The race started off pretty quick but slowed down by about the third lap. After corner two on lap 5 I decided I need to move up and hitched a ride from another guy thinking the same thing. As I got near the front everything was pretty tight with no room to get in, so before I was actually at the very front I increased speed and decided I was just going to go for a little attack, one guy from La Bicicletta tried to follow but ended up in no mans land. As I went past the finish line the prime bell went signaling a $50 cash prime so I decided to stick with it knowing what ever happened I would have $50. So I did another lap solo won the prime then let the La Bicicletta guy who was just behind catch up so we could work together. We did two laps together and then another guy bridged up to us because there was another prime coming up (which he won). Two more laps with the new guy before the pack finally caught us. I think I was off the front for close to ten minutes. Perhaps not the smartest thing to do in a pack of cat 3's but I still had fun doing it.
The corners were all sort of sketchy and I think there were two single person crashes (both behind me) and I managed to stay in the front half for the majority of the race. However with a bout 5 minutes to go before the 3 final laps I had a nearly disastrous moment. I was the farthest outside going into turn three and as I started my turn the guy beside me on the inside started swinging out. I attempted to protect my steering but he bumped my elbow which started me wobbling. As that was happening my pedal hit the ground hard and my back wheel hoped up and sideways, once my wheels was on the ground again I was headed straight for the hay bail and just managed to narrowly avoid it. During that whole thing I lost about 5 or 6 spots but the adrenaline kicked in and I moved straight to the front with out any perceived effort. but by the last lap I was somewhere near the middle again In the last lap everyone’s elbows got higher and two guys even had somewhat of a head butting battle. In the final sprint I managed to pass two or three people and not get passed by anyone else.
Not only was the island present but it didn’t do too bad either. Raph was second James was third Doug was somewhere in the top 10 I was about 15 and Alex was just behind me Shailie was second in the women’s and Vaughn lasted quite a while in the Cat 1/2 race where only about 10 out of 25 finished.
Defiantly fun to do a bigger race and looking forward to do bunch more next year!