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cycling
October 2009 
Tour de Murrieta Omnium Race Report
Posted on Mar 9th, 2008
by 
Cara
Cara
W123 Omnium
Day1: 50 minute FLAT 4 corner crit – me: 25th of out 56Day 2: 46 mile, 13 lap FLAT 8-10 corner circuit race – me: 7th out of 56 (or so)
GC: 15th (in the money!!)
Special Thanks to Hector Castillo for donating some brilliant mechanical support.
So….I’m NOT a crit or circuit racer. I did one crit at Canadian Nationals in 2001, I did one circuit race last year (San Marcos), and I’ve done 2 crits as part of stage races. They are FLAT and I have no idea how they work. That said, I’ve decided that I need to get better at them so that they won’t hold me back at bigger stage races – off to Murrieta I went. All the big SoCal teams were there: Helen’s, Bicycle John’s, Rock Racing, SDBC, CA Pools, Banning’s Bikes, etc. These women have WAY more experience than me, so I was hoping to learn some things (and I did!)
Day 1: It’s never a good thing to sit at the start of the race and here people say “Cara, what are you doing here?” To add an additional insult, several people asked me if I was a (gasp) triathlete. Hmmm. That’s ok. I had a plan: I was just going to practice moving from the back to the front, but not the very front. Maybe 10-15 minutes in there was a crash that involved an ambulance. A couple of laps after that the three women in a break-away (that I had just started chasing down) crashed. I have no idea how the race played out at the end, but it basically came down to a field sprint with Aaron’s winning it.
Day 2: My plan for today was to sit at the back for the first few laps and then just practice chasing down everything, doing a few attacks, and trying to get into a winning break. Apparently this strategy will make a lot of teams mad at you. After a crash on the first lap, the rest of the race was nice and safe. At about 8 laps to go, 4 or 5 of us (I think) got into a break that managed to stick for about 2 laps. Once we got pulled back, Helen’s and Bicycle John’s were launching tons of attacks. Since I don’t have the most fantastic jump in the world (especially at this point in the season) I would often pull the whole field back when it was me that did the bridging. Sorry about that. With about 2.5 laps to go, I punched it a bit over a hill and we ended up with a break of 7. Since all the major teams were represented in the break, it stuck. Yay. With lots of team strategy going on (a lot of which I’m still learning) much of the pulling was done by myself, Lana of Rock Racing and Morgan of SouthBay. Organization was at a minimum and entropy was high. There was a right corner and then 150m to the finish. No sprint training means no sprint legs and I came in 7th.
Overall: As much as I’m loathe to admit it, the two days were kind of fun, especially day 2 since I could participate more. It was really good to work on my cornering and surging. Apparently I have much to learn about etiquette and not messing up other team’s tactics. Luckily, next week is the NRC Sequoia TT so I’ll be all by myself.
So….I’m NOT a crit or circuit racer. I did one crit at Canadian Nationals in 2001, I did one circuit race last year (San Marcos), and I’ve done 2 crits as part of stage races. They are FLAT and I have no idea how they work. That said, I’ve decided that I need to get better at them so that they won’t hold me back at bigger stage races – off to Murrieta I went. All the big SoCal teams were there: Helen’s, Bicycle John’s, Rock Racing, SDBC, CA Pools, Banning’s Bikes, etc. These women have WAY more experience than me, so I was hoping to learn some things (and I did!)
Day 1: It’s never a good thing to sit at the start of the race and here people say “Cara, what are you doing here?” To add an additional insult, several people asked me if I was a (gasp) triathlete. Hmmm. That’s ok. I had a plan: I was just going to practice moving from the back to the front, but not the very front. Maybe 10-15 minutes in there was a crash that involved an ambulance. A couple of laps after that the three women in a break-away (that I had just started chasing down) crashed. I have no idea how the race played out at the end, but it basically came down to a field sprint with Aaron’s winning it.
Day 2: My plan for today was to sit at the back for the first few laps and then just practice chasing down everything, doing a few attacks, and trying to get into a winning break. Apparently this strategy will make a lot of teams mad at you. After a crash on the first lap, the rest of the race was nice and safe. At about 8 laps to go, 4 or 5 of us (I think) got into a break that managed to stick for about 2 laps. Once we got pulled back, Helen’s and Bicycle John’s were launching tons of attacks. Since I don’t have the most fantastic jump in the world (especially at this point in the season) I would often pull the whole field back when it was me that did the bridging. Sorry about that. With about 2.5 laps to go, I punched it a bit over a hill and we ended up with a break of 7. Since all the major teams were represented in the break, it stuck. Yay. With lots of team strategy going on (a lot of which I’m still learning) much of the pulling was done by myself, Lana of Rock Racing and Morgan of SouthBay. Organization was at a minimum and entropy was high. There was a right corner and then 150m to the finish. No sprint training means no sprint legs and I came in 7th.
Overall: As much as I’m loathe to admit it, the two days were kind of fun, especially day 2 since I could participate more. It was really good to work on my cornering and surging. Apparently I have much to learn about etiquette and not messing up other team’s tactics. Luckily, next week is the NRC Sequoia TT so I’ll be all by myself.
Access: Public
