Moving up?

I am moving up, at least in the ’self-selected’ (not entirely) fields for Tuesday night races at Hellyer. The previous two trips to Tuesday nights I had raced with the ‘B’ group, in part, and had been spanked big time. So I signed up for the ‘C’ group again last night with a warning from Larry that the ‘C’ group might be ‘women only’. Great to have a ‘women only’ race, there are some fast, strong women out there! There are some legititimate ‘C’s, so the less strong get thrown in with some of the strong; it is a field with a lot of variance in capabilities. Two of the strongest women, Ileana and Beth, did self-select into the ‘B’ group which I am sure was appreciated by a few.

June means back to to scratch races for a few weeks, leaving the points races for July. I did start the first ‘C’ race, but myself and a bunch of other guys in the field were told we could not be factors in the race; no attacks, no lapping, nothing to help affect the outcome. I tried to stay near the rear until I started seeing real bad decisions, mostly a rider who liked to dive down on the inside when the rear of the paceline would swing uptrack in turn 3. That is a recipe for some skin on the pavement, so I went high and soon found myself in no “man’s” land, between the main pack and a break mostly consisting of ProMan Virginia. When I feigned to sprint against Virginia for a cookie prime I got a reminder from Larry that I was not racing. So back to spinning my own circles for the remainder of the 30 laps.

Since I was riding rather than racing with the ‘C’ group I decided it was time for more. I did not even exit the track after the ‘C’ ride, just went around and back up onto the rail for the ‘B’ race. It was a big field, and I was a bit nervous after the crash 8 days before. I found it much easier to stay in the group this time, and even set myself up to block at the front if a teammate decided to try a flyer. He tested the waters at one point but pulled up on the front so I sat in and continued circling and paying close attention. The problem with big fields and lots of wheels is that you keep ending up on the wrong wheels and have to sprint back on when you realize the person in front of you has fallen off. After a bunch of that I did not have enough gas to catch back on and ended up in a 3 person chase group, including Beth, for the last 10 laps or so. We were never far behind and we came close, real close, to reattaching but there was not enough time and we lost one engine at a critical juncture. As we dropped down after the race Larry called out for some of ‘B’ riders to join the second ‘C’ field; I thought about it briefly, but I had just done 60 laps (30 and 30) and was a bit dehydrated so I cooled down instead of making it 3 straight.

The second ‘B’ race almost ended for me as soon as it began. At the beginning I had an opportune moment so I took a flyer off the front. It was short lived as the legs were a bit too thrashed and I was soon OTB and considered pulling out. But I stayed and soon was riding as tail gunner behind Mark F. After a couple laps of recovery I moved back up into the middle of the field where I would have more options. That was a nice place to stay until about 25 laps in (of 40) when things strung out and I dropped down into the paceline; the paceline was short lived and when it ended I found myself blocked down in the sprinter’s lane. I was fending off a constant barrage of guys trying to drop down without looking so I dealt with the fact that to get into a safer position I would have to either sit up and drop back, or take another flyer off the front. And I chose option B. It was another short-lived event but I did get out of harms way. And that seemed like the perfect opportunity to pull myself out and cool down a bit.

So I guess I will be making it a habit of signing up for the ‘B’ races from now on, saying goodbye to the ‘C’s. The other aspect of ‘moving up’ is a bit more of a question. I may have the minimum number to do a category upgrade, depending on whether the low-key races last October count. So today I am musing on whether to send in the upgrade request, or wait two weeks and then try.