Niwot Crit - Down goes Fraser

I must have had some bad karma today. On the way to the race I hit a prairie dog, and walking to registration I stepped in some dog crap. Maybe I should have turned around and gone home. :)

After warming up for a while in the shade, I rolled over to the start line and got a good spot at the front next to Lee. Lee's number one rule of crit racing - get a good start. If all else fails, at least you had a good start.

I didn't start great, but I stuck in the middle of the field. It was hard to pass people with all the corners, but I was able to move up some on the longer straight sections of the course. The effort I had to put in out of each corner at the back of the pack sucked, so it was worth trying to move up.

For most of early parts of the race, it felt like we were taking the corners at a pretty good speed. I got impatient when the laps slowed down and decided to start coming up on the inside. On the second 120 degree corner, I came in deep inside. After all the slow paced cornering, my brain had forgotten that I couldn't pedal through a corner at high speeds. Consequently, I hit a pedal on the ground and went down.

I'm annoyed at myself for making such a dumb mistake, but it's a learning experience. I think I made the right choice to try and move up, but I just executed poorly. I have some good scrapes, but nothing serious. I'll live to fight another day at the Leaning Tree crit in a couple weeks.