Stage 4: Uptown Minneapolis Criterium.

This is your typical L-shaped 6 corner crit. The first and second turn were really open, sweeping beauties, but the road narrowed to one lane after the third and the fourth was slightly off camber and had a little median sticking out at the apex that narrowed it down.

My mental game has been a little off since that debacle of a first day. To have them forget my call up leaving me to get crashed on the first corner and then to sprint around the whole race on terribly fit bike left by body stiff and sore and my spirits dampened. Before the stage I was doing my best to convince myself that I really am a crit rider, but I wasn’t quite succeeding. Add to that the lore that the race is won and lost on the last two stages and I was fighting the mindset that I was just in this race to sit in and hang on.

I did my best to get a good spot at the start line and had decent position for the first part of the race. It took me a while to figure out the good lines and I saw some pretty sketchy riding and a few close calls, mostly thanks to the other amateurs in the race. Have I mentioned yet that there are way more amateurs than I expected? I think roughly half the field is amateurs, and this really shows in way the pack behaves. The amateurs are all a little sketchier than the pros, and the pros in turn feel justified in pushing the amateurs around. A bit strange to be sure.

I missed a few crashes during the race, but when things heated up in the last laps I was too far back and got caught behind a crash in the 4th corner that split the field. We never could close the gap and I lost some more time in the GC. Not my finest race, to be sure.

There were a few highlights from this stage. Our team was set up in the expo area right next to radio Disney and we got some primo entertainment during our warm-ups, including a man who was a bit too old and not quite talented enough to pull off the dance moves he was attempting. Its also nice to see friends that I’ve met over a few years racing. Amber Rais stopped to say hi, even though it was right before her race and I’m sure she needed to be doing something else. She’s about the nicest person ever and one hell of a bike racer. Also, my mom and sis took me out for some killer Italian food post-race to raise my spirits.

Hoping for some better things to come in these last two nasty days.