This weekend was the first ever UCI weekend for Southern California. UCI in terms of cycling has nothing to do with UC Irvine, for those of you wondering.... Union Cycliste Internationale is the global governing body for cycling- a UCI race usually means big names will show up, and the promoter will loose lots of money because they have to pay the commissaries a billion swiss francs per hour.
Anyway, none of that really matters for my Cat 3/4 races, so it was just a normal race. Attendance was actually a little low unfortunately, only about half of the top 10 on the series were present, so that was a bummer, but a good chance to move up I guess. I was 11th in the series going into the race, so no call-up, but that didn't matter much. I punched it hard on the opening paved section and cruised up the first big hill, and got into 3rd. My buddy Ted had the misfortune of unclipping on that hill, and lost a few spots, but he was quickly back up near the front. In the early parts of the first lap I did my usual first lap crash, just sliding out (despite the new tubies!). This not as bad as last week though, and I was able to quickly get back up, only losing 3-4 spots. After a few laps most of the race had shaken out, and the two leaders were well up the road, Ted was in 3rd, I was in 4th, and there were a few riders looking to come up, who never quite made it. I don't think I would have placed any differently had I not crashed. Maybe I would have been there when the guys took off and made their gap (my crash may have been what caused their initial gap....) but I don't think I would have hung with, and may have even blown up, so maybe it's a good thing.
So I should be looking at a callup for tomorrow's race, which I hope will feature more people, especially more from the top 10 who had been handing to us pretty well the first few weeks.
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