Crit Season is a bust for me

Man, I seriously suck in the last 5 laps of crits. Like badly. Ok, maybe not as bad as those who crash out of them, but I think after the final big crit of the year last night I'm really disappointed in myself. This whole frickin season my best result in a crit is 10th. That just sucks. I didn't win any primes and the only cash I won was at Redmond Derby Days where it payed 20 deep. Seriously, here are my crit results:

Tour of Walla Walla: 85th same time
Mutual of Enumclaw: 53rd pulled out of race
Capital Stage Race: 44th pulled out of race
Mt Hood: 60th same time
St Honore: 17th same timeish
Redmond Derby Days: 17th same time
Cascade: 31st same time
Vancouver: 10th last from break
Franz Bakery: 16th
Cirque du Cycling: 20th

So yeah, I'll go over those last 3 here.

Vancouver

After more trouble than it ought to have been for me, I bridged up to the break of the day.  Eventually it was 10 of us and eventually I could not keep up a reasonable place and got last from the break.  That sucked.

Franz Bakery

So this race I set a record for most spectators coming to watch me.  I had my Mom & Dad, my Mom's friend and her friend's husband, my cousins Eric and Laura and then Laurel, her sister, her sister's husband and their 3 kids.  And all I could show for it was 16th place and in the process I relinquished my 4th place Oregon Cup standings and ended up 7th on year which is good, but not good enough damnit!  I was so angry at myself after that race because it is a race I have come close to winning twice and I really like bread.  It was also immensely stupid because as shown in the photos below I was in a good spot with 4ish to go and just totally blew it the last 2 laps.







Cirque du Cycling

Lots of money on the line for this one. Jordan was saying he was bringing extra medics for the races and Eddie was telling me I need to line up on the line for this race. And it was almost about the thunderstorm. Well, I lined up ok, it didn't thunderstorm and I avoided crashes. But still on the last lap or maybe the second to last lap I thought I was doing good and was something like 4th out of the 180, but by the time I got to the next corner I was out of the top 10 and gave up. Gosh that sucked.





I am truly in disbelief as to how badly I suck in crits. Not cool.

Oh, I almost forgot...

I finally won at Tuesday PIR by doing a successful stompie from a break.  Going clockwise I sprinted with 1k and then held a good speed and the gap all the way to the finish.  Then after getting some dinner at Eddie's I biked home in the dark and while going on Broadway a guy in a Mercedes took me out while diving in for a parking spot.  He felt really bad and settled it out with me by giving me $200 from the nearest ATM.  That is just sad that my crit winnings are less than that crash compensation. 

All right I am done complaining hopefully.  I'm not doing the Gresham crit and am focusing on Eugene for now.