Manville Crit

Tonight kicked off the Memorial Day weekend races with the Manville Crit. 20 mile Cat 3/4 race held on a ~1k rectangle. There is a power hill on the back side that starts sapping your legs after 20+ laps (we raced 35 laps). Decent sized field (I'd guess between 50 -60). In the past few years. about 1/2 the field gets shelled and this year was no different. I make sure I stay up front for the 1st half to make sure I make the selection. With under 10 laps to go, I do a quick count and there are ~30 left and I'm starting to like my odds. 3 riders get up the road. I start moving up with 3 laps. On the last lap, one of the lead riders crashes in turn 2. I get caught up by a couple riders who unsuccessfully try to avoid the down rider and race over.

The rider who crashed was a Junior who just built up a nice new carbon bike. The bike frame was completely trashed. Why would you race on a bike the day after you built it?

1 race down this weekend and 3 to go!