Tour of Lawrence Review

My first cat 2 races were nothing to write home about. But since my Mom and Dad will be reading this post, I suppose there's that. And I saved a postage stamp.

The venue for my first p/1/2 race was the Tour of Lawrence. I had heard about this race a few years ago and wondered what it would be like to race it, especially the criterium in downtown Lawrence.

To my dismay, Saturday's race was moved from KU's campus and on to a new location at Haskell College. The old (KU) course had hills, which I typically like. The new one appeared to have hills on paper, but in reality, it amounted to nothing more than a couple false flats on a level course. Sunday's race remained in downtown Lawrence, where it was also flat. Each course also had plenty of room to maneuver through the pack. I wouldn't describe either as technical, although Saturday's race featured an S turn that was fun to carve at top speed.

Traditionally, I do not fare well on flat, non-technical courses. Flat courses tend to keep the pack together, favoring the sprinters at the end of the race. My sprint isn't so good. The results reflected this: I finished 29th/50 on both days. Oof.

Racing bikes is fun. There is no doubt about that. Winning, or doing something particularly well, makes it even more so. Though I was happy to be in the elite field representing Harvest and Midwest Cycling Community, I wasn't particularly fond of how I raced either days. I struggled with patience. I also got lazy and failed to work at remaining up near the front of the pack. These are the keys to flat and fast races. In short, patience and pack surfing are not as glamorous as attacking the field or carrying speed through technical corners, but both skills are obviously required if one wants to place better than 29th.

That's all I've got to say about that.

I have the weekend off, then next week I'm jumping in for a trip to Clear Lake's Blues Booze and BBQ bike festival where I'll have a chance to apply what I've learned on another flat and fast course.

In the meantime, I plan to do some local training. Perhaps I'll tape an American flag or two on my bike, though I might have to steal them back from Fred's son Jack (see photo at the bottom of the post). In order to do that, I'll have to build a time machine to travel back to the future eight years ago.

Nah, I think I'll just go ride my bike.

Happy Friday. Thanks for reading.