Category: 4
Result: Mid-pack

Today was the Santa Cruz Criterium - what a great course! Technical and a climb to sort people out. I rode the 4's and Bob and Ziggy rode the 3's. Afterwards, I introduced Bob to the Boardwalk's Giant Dipper roller coaster.

I am pleased to say that I managed to stay the course and was able to make up ground from too far back in the sprint to finish around 15th.

The hardest part of course for me was the downhill acceleration out of the hairpin - I would always lose ground here. I had one trip to the very front when I carried my downhill speed past the slowing bunch into turn 2, almost getting a small group away by default.

I had a fun incident with a Los Gatos rider at the end of the narrow section - he was trying to come up the inside, but never drew level. I turned in following the rider in front and the LG rider's bars were rubbing my thigh, pushing me out to rub shoulders against an AV rider. All good clean fun!

The other cool thing was one time up the hill near the end. I was stuggling slightly towards the top when I felt a huge push which made all the difference and helped me close the gap. I didn't see who it was, but there was only one person in the field who would have done that. Many thanks were said afterwards to Darryl Smith who got 3rd in the later Masters 4/5 race.

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