CARRERA DE SAN RAFAEL - WIN!

San Rafael Criterium
Teammates: Helene, Kristin, Hanan, Shelley

Life's been pretty chaotic lately with the new house, sick kitties, a totaled car still in Seattle and lots of work to do. I showed up late to the race with just enough time to get a 20 minute warm-up and my number pinned. I caught a glimpse of my teammates before the race, but didn't have much time to strategize with them about race tactics and a game plan. Hanan mentioned that she had ridden earlier in the day and offered to help the team in any way she could. I told her my intention was to race hard and aggressively. I didn't see Helene and Kristin until we took the start line, but I knew they would have the same ideas as me and that we would all play off each other as we always do and try and control the race.

It was a hometown race for the Drumm sisters and Helene is a local hero as a firefighter in the area, so the obvious game plan was to do whatever we can to ensure that Helene wins the race. Because I didn't get a solid warm-up, I wanted to set the pace and ride hard from the gun to open my legs and lungs up a bit and nullify any early attacks. Instead of pulling the field around though, I decided to attack and found myself off the front for a few laps. After I got caught, the counter-attack came immediately from Vanderkitten, followed by another attack from Velo Bella. Both riders came back and I felt good again so I launched another attack through the start/finish. This time I had some strong riders, Sarah Bamberger of Cheerwine and Hannah Banks of ValueAct, come with me and we were able to open up a big gap. However, this break was doomed by the ValueAct rider who didn't seem interested in working with Sarah and I and we were eventually reabsorbed by the field again.

This was a perfect set up for the team to launch a very effective attack, which came from Kristin immediately after the catch. It was perfectly timed and she had 5 girls go with her. The only problem was, Sarah was able to cover this move too. This was not an ideal breakaway situation for us, with only 1 out of 6 girls up the road, including Sarah Bamberger who was the most dangerous rider in the field. I waited to see the reaction within the field. There were a few moves here and there and a small effort to chase, but it was clearly not going to be enough. So, I decided to go across the gap by myself.

After bridging halfway across the gap, a rider from the break began falling back to me. That rider was Karla Kingsley of Easton/Specialized. She is a solid rider who I have raced many times with on the track. She is a great competitor with tons of potential and I was happy to see her coming back to me. When we made contact with each other, the fight in her came out and we worked together to close the rest of the gap. Little did I know, Helene had also made a jump out of the field and was coming up behind us. Man, was I happy to see her. So, now we are three strong and the gap to the 5 riders ahead of us is quickly closing. Kristin had started to sit on the break at this point, once she realized that she had teammates bridging up to her, so that helped us get there much faster. It's different racing without radios. The spectators and crowds were incredibly loud, which was so cool, but it made it hard to hear what our teammates and friends were yelling from the sidelines.

Just before making the catch to the group ahead of us, I dropped back to Helene and asked her how she felt about attacking as soon as we made contact. She said, "wow, that's aggressive," but I knew she would and could do it if she wanted to. I worked to bring us up to the group and immediately Helene attacked. But, Sarah is a smart rider and she had already dropped to the back of her group to prepare for the counter-attack that would come from our team and she was on Helene right away.

Now the break of 8 is all back together and we have a comfortable lead on the field, so we started feeling each other out to set up for the final sprint. With about 7 laps to go there was a prime and Helene went for it. She got it easily. I rode up to Kristin and asked her to help me drive the break to set up Helene for the win. She did exactly that. Then I rode to the back and told Helene to ignore any late primes and save all of her energy for a solo attack with 2 or 3 to go for the win. She said o.k. but asked me to go for the primes if there were any. I assured her I would, except there were no late primes to go for. Kristin and I kept the pace high and tried some attacks just to make people suffer a little before the final sprint and keep Helene in a nice position to attack with 2 to go.

Like clockwork, Helene sensed the perfect moment and attacked just before the bell lap and opened up a gap that held through the start finish and up the hill on turn 1. On the climb, Sarah Bamberger attacked in an effort to chase and catch Helene and I was on her wheel. Once she saw she had me in tow, I sensed that she backed off a bit, but held speed through the last two corners and onto the final straight. Helene was clear but I opened up a sprint to make sure we would finish 1st and 2nd. Sarah finished just behind us in 3rd. The picture of the three of us crossing the line is funny. We all have our arms raised. It's pretty cool. Sarah was awesome to race with. She's so smart and strong and it was fun battling with her the whole race.

Props to my teammates for a solid race and tactically perfect execution despite having no pre-race plan or radios. Hanan remained in the chasing field to ensure that we would have one more card to play if it all came back together. We raced like a team and that's what it's all about. We were happy to get the win at San Rafael. It was a great course, very well-organized, and the fans were amazing. Thanks Ryan Dawkins at project sport and the City of San Rafael and all the volunteers.

Thanks for reading - Shelley