Sugar Crit

The Sugar Crit is a fun, technical course. The promoters do a good job of creating a festive atmosphere, and the whole shebang happens in "downtown" Sugarland, a nice shopping center with store goods ranging from window treatments to a doggie boutique.

The race started with a first lap prime, so things went hard from the gun. While we started with around 30 women, they had staged the cat 4's with us, so there was a bit of a flurry as the 1/2 gals scrambled to get ahead of the crowd in the turns. Our Jen won the 1st prime, a round of drinks at Sherlock's, and the race was on. The attacks kept coming- Rachel went, and when she was reeled back in, I went, and when I was brought back, Tracie from Moritz (solo winner of this race last year,) went. Jen saw the move, and bridged up to her. Daniele from the Flyers knew that was the place to be, and set out to bridge with me sitting firmly on her wheel. We made it up there, but man, I was totally pegged from all of the efforts! I try to pull through a couple of times, but I'm not recovering, and eventually drop back to the pack.

In the meantime, Lauren of Metro VW has launched with Kate Sherwin on her wheel- I see them fly by while I am drifting backwards. Sigh.

So with ultimately 6 riders down the road, Rachel & I cover attacks in the pack, and get ready for the field sprint. I'm set to lead Rachel out, but there's a miscommunication regarding where she wants to go from, and she sets out on her own, launching with 2 turns to go. She is able to use the turns to open a good gap, and holds it to easily win the field sprint.



By all accounts, Jen was cornering so much better than any of the other gals in the break, she was opening gaps behind her through every turn. While Lauren put in a good move with a turn to go, Jen shut it down in about .001 seconds when she opened up her sprint, and left all the girls comfortably in the dust. Great job to everyone- again, super team work and great use of tactics by all.
Jen signing autographs for some young fans. :)