The Historic Riverton Criterium was so much fun. It was my first time going and it’s now one of my favorite crit races despite me getting pulled. Max came too but there was nothing for him to race because they neither had a junior field nor a Cat 5. My dad has an “all-or-none policy” and I therefore had to bribe Max in going by contributing $5 for new football cards.
Before the race
Although we had a little bit of rain in the morning, when we arrived the weather was great. Coach Pete, Mia Deye, and Will Munday were there already and Katie came shortly after. Katie and Mia are my Star Track teammates and Will is a British sprinter who is staying with Coach Pete at T-Town.
We arrived about two hours before the race and I sat down to talk with Coach Pete, Mia and Will about the course and ate my favorite meal, a Chipotle Burrito Bowl, which we bought on our way. All emphasized that it’s super important to start from the front and stay at the front because the race is very “spongy”. Just before the corners the field bunches up as people are slowing down and then the field stretches out as riders go mostly single file through the turns and accelerate super hard out of them. So, if you fall back, you must sprint even harder out of the corners and this makes it very difficult to move up (particularly on this course because the straights are fairly short). Plus, I knew from my friend Eziel that they pull lots of riders so falling behind is just no good.
After I ate, Coach Pete took me on a pre-ride of the course and pointed out the best lines to take. The course goes through a residential neighborhood with beautiful old trees that shade most of the road. The course was indeed very technical in that it is just 1.23 km long, has six corners, and lots of bumps.
I did a fairly long warm-up, spending 40 minutes on rollers, which Coach Pete recommended for this punchy race. To get the best possible start position, I left to the staging area about 20 minutes before the race. When I arrived we had to wait a little for Katie and Mia to finish their race. Mia won! I believe she was tucked in the front-group for the entire race getting a good draft and on the finish straight she sprinted for the win.
When we were allowed to get on the course to line up, there was a lot of wrestling for good positions. Although I was probably the youngest and smallest in the field, I didn’t let others push me around and was super happy to get a front row spot right next to my friend Noah (who used to be on Star Track).
My Cat 3/4 race
There were 82 riders in my Cat 3/4 race and we had 31 laps for a total of about 40 km. The first lap of the race was supposed to be neutral but there was nothing neutral about it. All went pretty hard and I came into the first turn at a speed of about 50 km/h in fifth or sixth position. Other than that, the race was pretty much as expected – the overall pace was fast, all sprinted hard out of the corners each and every time, and the field stretched out a lot.
The sprinting out of the corners got to me at around the sixth lap and I started falling from the front group. For the remainder of the race I was with a group of about six riders and we were digging hard in an attempt to catch up to the front group but we unfortunately never saw it again. At the end of the 18th lap our group got pulled out of the race because we were about to get lapped.
Out of the 82 riders that started, 63 got pulled, meaning only 19 riders were ranked per the official race results. It would have been nice had they also placed the riders that got pulled according to when they got pulled. They did this for Somerville and I think it’s nice to see.
The GoPro recording of my race is on our YouTube channel.
Overall I was pretty happy with my race but I could have taken some corners a little better. Moreover (and my dad is making me write this) I will never ever turn on my bike computer after the start of the race!
Will be back
Despite me getting pulled, Riverton is now my favorite crit race and I can’t wait to be back next year. Thank you very much Carlos Rogers for organizing this wonderful event and replying so quickly to the questions I had before the race.
Awesome pictures from Ron Short
The last three pictures below were taken by Ron Short and I absolutely love them. The one on the bottom right shows Coach Pete. Many more of Ron’s absolutely fantastic photos are on his webpage and Instagram.
