Originally Posted by ips0803

Frederick Challenge / MABRA Crit Champs
Men's 5
3/~50

Course is an industrial park with basically no features and a square layout . Wide smooth roads with a slight uphill finish and a slight downhill backstretch. Finish straight had a tailwind but was too short to really have speeds get up there.

Wasn't going to race as I didn't keep track of when registration ended, but had a friend that wanted to race in the 3 field with a bunch of team mates but didn't want to drive so I figured why not, let's finish up my 10th race as a 5 and have some company for the trip.

I wasn't sure how the race would go with a course with no features, but was a little bit hesitant with a reasonably good sized CAT 5 field racing without the course forcing a selection to take place. So I decided to just go at the *** and see if everyone was sleeping or if the more fit racers would try and bridge up and drop some of the soon-to-be rolling road blocks.

Hit it hard going into the first turn and opened up a gap. Settled in to a decent pace about 30s in front of the pack and sat out there for 2-3 laps. Had one person bridge up which apparently woke everyone up and they pulled everything back together shortly after as CAT 5s love to do.

Spent most of the race just sitting in staying out of the wind and out of trouble with a couple moments perhaps worthy of comment:

1) Had the guy who solo'd off the front last week head off on his own about half way through the race. I was sitting about 6th wheel but on the wrong side so I hesitated in reacting. Looking back I think I could have bridged over to him and kept his pace but the bit of hesitation, a bit of doubt, and the delay in identifying who it was meant I just stayed in the pack for the remainder.

2) With about 6 to go, entering turn 4 I'm sitting mid-outside heading in to the turn. The wind is coming from the outside so I'm just offset to the inside of the rider in front of me. Entering the turn he swing out wider 1-2 bike lengths, then dives across to the inside curb, chopping across my line. I held my mid -outside, moving into the apex, back to mid-outside line, but his line chopped my front wheel forcing me to check up and shift the bike back and inside. I felt someone come into my rear wheel and hear some shouting, but not sure if anyone went down.

Question - I know it's not the best description, but what responsiblity do I have to slot in behind said rider vs. his responsibility to apex the corner on a reasonable line (turn was wide open on the outset, so reason to late apex/move outside-inside)? He lost so much ground swinging out prior to the turn it put me back up inside and overlapped and my reaction was to protect my wheel mid-turn by shifting it back, would I have been better served to try and push up next to him to protect my line or is this conversation not worth having as I kept it upright?

Anyways, slotted back in 6th or 7th wheel and moved around a bit until I found someone with some visible strength. Last lap they moved up to 4th wheel going through the last turn and I sprinted (actually for the first time as usually I'd be 12-15th wheel at the end and just sit up) up to get 2nd in the field (3rd with the winner off the front). Got a championship bronze medal and a box of gel for my troubles.

Then watched chappy have a good day in the 3s...