May 24, 2009: The Infamous Sommerville Criterium by Evie Stevens

The second criterium of the weekend, the infamous Somerville Crit.
We get to the race seamlessly, get signed in, check out the course and then get a really good warm up in. The course is 4 corners, 1.25 miles with very long back and front stretches, overall not technical. Cecelia and I are waiting for staging when Joe Brennan, the official , comes up to Cecelia and she introduces me to him. He asked me what I have won recently (I know that they are doing call ups and I know he is the official for our race...) so I told him. I see him check my number and go up to the announcers and I am thinking SWEET, please put me at the front!!! So I get a call up, which was pretty exciting.

Here is an overview of the teams at the race, Colavita, Team Type 1, Australian National Team, Laura Van Gilder & Kristen Lasasso and a bunch of other big hitters. I was definitely a tad bit nervous!

The race gets on its way and I get myself into good position in the front. I try attacking a bit, hoping that no one is going to know me or care about chasing me so that I could potentially start a break. Well none of them worked. it was a fast and nervy race, since you had so much space on each of the long stretches people were darting around everywhere. Every now and then I would float back in the pack and get this look from Cecelia that pretty much let me know, get back up there. I must say Cecelia brilliantly held her position through out the race, she was always nicely in the top half.

Going into the second to last lap I was in a nice position and then the swarm came on and you hear the awful sound of crunching and screeching, fortunately I was in the front of this crash and so was Cecelia, but you knew it was a big one.

Going into the second half of the last lap, I hopped onto the wheel of the Australian woman who won Bike Jam last week and thought okay this is going to be a good wheel, she will definitely move up (we were in the middle of the pack now). So we hit the last turn and boom chaos goes down in front of me, I see the sparks from metal hitting the pavement, girls are dropping like flies. All I am thinking is oh gosh where is my out and boom there it was, the gas station! So I nicely veered off into the gas station and through the sidewalk and asked a couple to watch out so I could hop back into the race. At that point I was out of contention, so I rode hard up the last stretch, glad all my skin was on for somewhere in the high 20s. Cecelia was also behind the crash, she fortunately avoided it, but had to un-clip and put her foot down. All in all it was a fun race and a good learning experience.

Two takeaways: 1) Don't take the risk of going into the finish mid-pack, be at the front 2). Cecelia makes AMAZING homemade bread. I ate about 2 peanut butter sandwiches with it and I think she should open up a bread shop, let it become a huge success and then sponsor a professional woman's cycling team.