February 9, 2013, Sun Devil Criterium, Category Masters 50+
Tempe, AZ   14.0 miles

This was a flat, 35 minute criterium on very smooth roads. The course was a 1/2 mile, somewhat roundish course with 2 ninety degree turns, the last one 230 meters from the finish. The corners were pretty safe and the roads generally very wide. The weather during mid-week was in the 70s, but we were racing in the mid-50s under overcast skies and a gentle wind from the West.

A review of the pre-registered riders indicated that Mark Fosenburg would most likely be the biggest threat, although his sprint has not been as sterling as during the 2012 season. I had neglected to review the start list to see who entered at the race site and it turned out there were a couple of key riders on this list.

I started on the front line and took the first corner first, as I wanted to get familiar with it since I had not ridden the course in a few years. The first few laps went rather quickly and the 25 riders seemed to have lots of energy. Initially there were several solo attacks and failures. Since there were 5 primes and the 60+ riders were riding the course at the same time, the primes would be in the early stages of the race. After just a few laps, the first prime was announced and I got onto Mark's wheel to make sure he didn't escape in a breakaway in the process. As we went around the final corner, I was surprised that he struck his pedal on the ground and did a slight skip and wobble right in front of me. I might be able to use this to my advantage later, as the last corner is the tightest and my bike can not strike a pedal on the ground at any speed.

We grouped together with a few unsuccessful attacks to follow and then a lone rider got a little bit of a gap. I was still keeping on Mark's wheel and he started picking up speed to join the lone rider. I let him go, taking the risk that he would join the other rider and expend a lot of energy, but eventually fail. He was out there for a few laps, never getting a dangerous lead and we did indeed absorb him back.

Things started to get a bit trickier as we started passing lapped riders from both our race and the 60+ race. As we got about 20 minutes into the race, a few riders were slipping off the front one at a time. I was still on the plan on riding conservatively to save all my energy for the final sprint and tried to monitor the intents of the pack and who was actually slipping away. It seemed that there were 3 or 4 that had successfully detached themselves from the pack, but we were passing more and more lapped riders that confused the situation.

As we whittled out the passed riders, it appeared that two riders were off by themselves. Unbeknownst to me, these were two very strong riders, Brian Lemke and an unknown rider from Florida, Todd Sanders. However, the pack was not very motivated and the leaders were gradually gaining, creating a fear that they could be gone for good. We were given the 5 laps to go sign and I hoped there would be more enthusiasm from the pack. Initially we got some, but with three to go, it looked like the leaders had it all sewn up. So with little to lose, at 2.5 laps to go on the back stretch I gave a strong 30 mph pull, not fast enough to gap the pack, but enough to get the momentum going and close some of the gap. This closed us almost half way to the 2 leaders and I hoped that if the momentum continued, the final lap excitement would be enough to reel them in.

On the next lap, with 1.5 laps to go, I was on Mark's wheel, sitting about 4th in the pack and the two leaders quickly decided to not give chase. Mark didn't want to take the lead and eased up, so I, who was sitting just a bit to his left to get a bit of shelter from the cross wind, had to immediately ease up as well to avoid running into him. Then I felt a push on the right side of my rear wheel which was unmistakably another rider that had crossed me with his front wheel. Unfortunately I then heard multiple bikes crashing behind. A few meters later a glanced back to assess the situation and there was a rider on my wheel and then the following riders seemed to be somewhat strung out. The riders in front of Mark decided to take advantage of the new situation and put more effort into trying to extend their lead. Mark kept chasing them, but with a significant gap, meaning that he was working fairly hard fairly close to the finish of the race. I sat on Mark's wheel and saw that this final lap did indeed bring us pretty close to the two leaders, but it was really touch and go with the reduced and fragmented pack as to if they would be swept up.

As we approached the final corner, I figured that waiting too long would not allow enough distance to catch the leaders. Also I was pretty sure that Mark would no longer be a big factor in the sprint and that he'd be limited in his ability to go around the final turn and quickly accelerate out of it. So I took off early, before the turn, flying past Mark and nearly catching the two leaders. I had to take the turn on the far outside to avoid running into the two leaders and sprinted the last 200m in my 50x15, beating Todd by about half a bike length, with Brian taking third.

So a bunch of calculated risks, tactics, timing and luck paid off well. A major perk of this win was that the winner of this race won a trip to Sedona AZ for two in a private 6 seater prop plane, lunch included.
Summary
Start
Time		 Distance
(Miles)		 Starters Duration Weather
(Deg F, mph)		 Speed avg
(MPH)		 Speed Max
(MPH)
12:40 pm 14.0 25 33:10 55, S@6 25.4 33.0

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