Celebrate Fremont Crit

Brooke Miller

By Brooke Miller
Date: June 10, 2006
Category: Women 1/2/3
Filed Size: 29 combined 1/2/3 riders (15 cat 1/2)
Teammates: 7 of them!!!!! Eryn, Jenni, Julie, Tracey, Victoria, Flavia, and Me.
Results: TIBCO 1st place and ALL the primes!

Ok, so this was just not fair. Really, it was not. I LOVE HAVING A GREAT TEAM!!! AND A GREAT TEAM!!! We had a full team with our newest member of the day, Flavia! She had just joined our team full-time.

Before the race, we got together to strategize. Despite having a full team, we were a bit limited in the health department. Eryn was sick and Tracey was still beat up from Mt. Hood. After the Mt. Hood crit, I decided that I wanted to learn to get over my fear of attacking and being off the front. I am more comfortable in a bunch sprint and so that makes me hesitant to want to be off the front where I am afraid that I am going to blow. Today, I wanted to be the aggressor and set up Jenni and/or Julie to win the race. Flavia and Victoria were to sit in and watch Julie and learn from her crit mastery.

On the first lap, Julie got up front and set a hot pace from the gun. Half of the course had strong head winds, and Julie pulled hard into the wind. When she hit the wind, she pulled over to let someone pull through, and no one did. So, I came up to take a pull and wanted to make it hurt. So, I pulled hard. Wind is a big advantage for a larger rider, like myself- and I ended up pulling a little too hard and opening up a gap. As soon as I saw the gap, I decided to try and make it bigger and stay out there. So, I stepped it up.

The great thing about the U-turn (the ONLY great thing about the U-turn) is that it let me watch what was happening in the pack behind me. As I was off the front, I saw riders try and bridge up--only to be shut down right away by TIBCO riders! I kept hearing the announcer talking about how great a job my teammates were doing of controlling the race and keeping the pack from chasing. I heard later from Jenny Eyerman (24hour) how frustrating it was to be up front, working hard, then look back for some help and see pink and blue shutting down the effort! I LOVED IT!

I was out there for about 15 minutes when the pack caught me, at which point Eryn attacked hard and was immediately off the front! She got about a 10-second gap in no time at all, and now the frustrated pack was back chasing again. I got on Jenny's wheel as she worked hard to chase Eryn down. At one point, Jenny looked back to get someone to pull through and saw me. I could tell she was frustrated AND working hard.

We caught Eryn after about a lap, and as soon as we caught her, she turned to me and said, "GO!" When the Little General says go, you'd better go! So, I jumped hard and again got off the front.

I was off the front until about 6 or 7 laps to go and then I was caught again. Eryn countered a second time when I was caught and then when she was caught, I jumped again with about 4 laps to go. Going into the last lap, I was caught and now we were a pack again. The next part of the plan was for me to work to lead out Jenni and/or Julie. So, on the back stretch, I tried to move into position to give a lead out, but I was not doing a good job of it. I think that I was much more in the way than anything. Right before the last corner, Jenni attacked hard and got a good jump. I tried to move toward the front of the group and block riders from jumping on her wheel, but Alena from Pillar Cycling got on her wheel. I had been hoping that Jenni would hold her off, but it was clear that Alena was going to jump around her. I jumped on Alena's wheel and decided that if she tried to go around Jenni, I would jump around her. Alena did end up jumping around Jenni, so I jumped hard. I ended up nipping her at the line and Jenni took 6th, followed by Victoria rounding out the top ten at 9th.

This race was clearly a team effort. I was solo off the front for a lot of the race, only because of how great a job TIBCO did of shutting down any attempts to bridge up to me. Before, I had always been afraid to be solo because I was afraid to blow up. This time, I went as hard as I could because I knew that if I blew up the rest of the team was there to rock the race. I cannot express how great it was to have the team there and supporting and working like that.