Keith Berger Crit - Cat 4

The weather was overcast, but dry in East Hartford on Sunday morning for the Keith Berger Memorial Crit. I had never done this race before and was down in CT for the weekend, so I decided to jump in. Before the Cat 5 race, I warmed up on the course for about 20 minutes. It’s a four-corner crit, but the streets are so wide that none of the turns matter much. I continued warming up off-course while the Cat 5s raced and had logged about 20 miles of warmup before my race began.

I’ve had success in technical crits when I can get off the front either solo or in a small group. I hoped to do the same this time. Right from the gun, I punished those who hadn’t gotten a good warmup by kicking the tempo up around 26mph for the whole first lap. I succeeded in completely stringing out the pack, but I don’t think the elastic snapped. Others took the lead and we continued a very fast pace for the rest of the race (~25mph avg). Despite this, there was at least one attack per lap for the rest of the race. I really wanted to get in a break that would stick, so I hung out in the top 10 wheels for the entire race and bridged to a lot of break attempts. I also tried to attack through the prime sprints a couple of times, but those efforts didn’t work either. By the end of the race, I was totally cooked and rolled in with the pack.

I was disappointed that the course wasn’t more technical. I plan to focus my crit entries on 6-corner, technical courses from now on (Beanpot, Whaling City, GMSR, etc.). Bunch sprinting in a crit isn’t my strong-suit and it’s hard to break things apart when a course is so open.