Evanston Northwestern Healthcare Grand Prix of Cycling

First off, kudos to everyone involved in putting on this race. I knew that the location of downtown Evanston would be fun but the organizers did a great job of running this race. There were tons of people and the atmosphere was great. This will definitely be on my calandar in the coming years.

Well after barely being able to get around on Thursday the back started to relax on friday and saturday. Sunday morning i woke up with some stiffness but mowing the lawn seemed to help loosen it up so i made the decision to race. We packed the van and loaded up the kids and grandparents and made our way to evanston.

They had us all park in a parking garage which was kind of fun but weird. There was plenty of room so you could take up a couple of spaces. One for your car and one for your bike. I ran down and registered and then went back to the van to change and warm up. The weird part was because you were in a parking garage you didn't see too many other cyclist except those right around you.

After warming up my back felt really good. There was no tightness or pain so i was really encouraged. I put on my jersey and went to grab my cycling gloves and then realized i had 2 left hand gloves and no right so i went sans gloves. I then made my way to the start finish which meant i got to do something that i always wanted to do as a kid but would get in trouble for. Ride the bike in a parking garage.

The evanston course is a .9 mile loop with 6 turns. After the start it features 4 quick turns in succession and in talking with some friends before the race it seemed a great course for a breakaway to stick. The thought being you get a great jump before the first turn and just hammer thru the rest of the turns and you are out of sight. Watching the 40+ race before ours it seemed true since a break of 6 or 7 riders stayed off the front and won.

Our race was 45 laps or 40 miles. Our plan was to try to put something together with somewhere in the low 30's to go. The only problem was that the speed of the field was too fast. From the start there was breakaway attempt after attempt but nothing stuck. Even when the big teams in the race were well represented in the break the pace of the field never dropped too much.

For most of the race i tried to stay in the front half of the field and was pretty successful. Probably about half way thru i started feeling my back. It was getting tired. With maybe 12 laps to go i found myself on the front when a move went. I went with it but again it didn't stick. Now it seem pretty clear that it was going to be a field sprint. I remember working my way back towards the front with about 6 to go but then i slipped back and after that i couldn't move up more than a couple of spots. My back was hurting more and more and when that happens you loose a lot of your power when you have to accelerate out of the corners.

So it was i found myself towards the back of the field on the last lap. Coming out of the last turn I tried to sprint and gained a few spots by the finish line. Considering my day on wed. i'm happy with how the race went. I'm taking today off the bike to nurse the back a little and then will try to resume training this week for friday's race in Kenosha.

When it was over we had covered 40 miles in just 1 hour and 27 minutes. That's an average speed of 27mph. I think that is the fasted crit i've raced so far.

Here are a couple of vids from our race.

See you next time.