Superweek - Lakefront Road Race

Superweek brought out one of the best circuit courses and dusted it off for the 2009 series. The Lakefront Road Race long course has not been utilized in years but the directors decided that this year would be a great time to bring it back. It was a great course with two short but steep climbs, one technical decent, and another wicked-fast decent down Lincoln Memorial Drive. Awesome!

Typical of Superweek races, the Cat 4/5 race did not start on time, 35 minutes late to be precise. The master’s race starting just before us staged a protest that was not well received by either the directors or other racers waiting to go. The late start was due to the fact that the streets were not closed off completely until 5 to 10 minutes before the proposed starting times. No barriers were set up and it only created a mess for the organizers and riders.

Once started though it was great, even with the light rain that fell and made the roads “icy” due to the oil lifting off the tarmac. Riders repeatedly went down on the technical decent, trying to push the limit but they all paid for it. I managed to stay clear of two crashes where riders slide out in front of me. No breakaways were able to stick due to the long stretch to the finish line in which speeds easily reached 35 mph and all who were out front were pulled in like they were standing still. I felt good throughout the race but did notice on the last climb that my legs were getting a little burn-out. I’m guessing I am getting a little tired with the long season… After the final climb I was sitting about 25th and started the long stretch to the finish by moving up the left side. Tyson Beck came screaming around me and I jump to catch his wheel. As I did so, a teammate of mine (who planned with Tyson to have him give my teammate a lead-out) jumped to grab Tyson’s wheel, which in turn slammed me into the gutter. He had no clue I was there and most likely didn’t care who was on the wheel. I was pretty mad at the time being that I almost ate curb and then was hung out to dry in the wind. I pedaled into the wind with anger and managed to get into the slipstream at about 30th place. I made some aggressive moves through the field to move up positions but with 100 meters before the line when we launched out sprint, a crash went down in front of me and I had to kill the sprint and smash the breaks. Good thing I replaced the break pads two nights before! I went around the crashed rider as he was sliding across the tarmac and easy pedaled through the finish. I ended up 15th on the day and in the money so I got half of my entry fee back. Hopefully the check doesn’t bounce though! (Another Superweek problem). I wasn’t the happiest camper with the end results but that’s racing. Going to give the Whitefish Bay Criterium a shot on Sunday. It will be super-fast being that it is the last race for the Superweek series but I will have a full team of support and we will have the Blue-Train rocking it!