Again, yay for Crit season! The Houston Grand is always a fun event- they do a great job of creating a festive atmosphere- from "Recoveritas" to viewing tents, Houston's only downtown race is a blast!
The course was a little different from years past, shortened on the long straightaway and run clockwise. This made the finish one loooong drag race- a half mile slight false flat, with nothing in the way of the line.
This course has historically been lousy for any kind of breakaway in our small fields: the long straights allow the pack to keep breaks in sight, never to be forgotten, and the few turns are 90 degrees and simple, by and large. The Flyers were also racing, though, and they're good about trying to get people off the front, so we thought it might be possible with two strong teams trying.
Rachel won the first prime, Jen countered, and there was a decent looking move that lasted for a couple of laps. One Flyer, Kim from Solar Eclipse, and our Jen. After a turn, a 2nd Flyer made a jump for a bridge, and when she hit the break, we decided we no longer liked the move, and worked with the other girls to shut it down. We figured we could do better than 1 in the top 4, and certainly with 2 from the same team- no way!
Long story short, lots of attacks, nothing sticks. That's just the way that course goes.
The race comes in to a long drag race up the finishing straight. I'd been protecting Jen, covering moves, so I knew I'd be hanging on as I could. There was a little mix-up at the finish that caused Rachel to lose
position, but she still finished a great 4th, with me right behind for 5th, and Jen taking the V. How rad is that?!
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