It's hard to believe the season is already here and underway! We went to the Long Beach Criterium on January 25th for our season opener. Alex, Zack,Corey, and I were there and Joel Stranglehold joined us.
I gotta say, I've been racing a loooong time and I was really excited for the first race more so than years past. The team has really come together this offseason and I can see the guys are going to be good and that's something to look forward to.
I signed up for the masters race to get some extra training in and maybe snag a result. Doubling up is an art form. You can't go too hard in the masters race if you're doing the 1/2 race, but it's hard to turn off the competitive fire! The field was huge (over 100 riders) and it looked a lot like a regular 1/2 race-lots of fast guys. Besides Joel and myself, Josh Zlotlow was racing. I was so excited to be racing again that I went with an attack on the first lap-woohoo! I ended up being pretty aggressive all day, but no breaks would stick. I finished off the race by trying to help Joel go for the sprint. I dropped back with a lap to go and I think Joel got swarmed on the final lap.
One down, one to go.
The Pro/1/2 race had a big field. Both Pro and U23 National Criterium champs (Rahsaan Bahati and Justin Williams) were in attendance along with some local pros like Tony Cruz. Swami's was represented by Zack, Alex, Corey, Joel, and myself. The race got underway and breaks started going on the first lap. There were a lot of excited racers with some horsepower so we regularly doing 30mph down the straightaways. Zack, Corey, and Alex were doing a great job of covering moves and keeping Swami's at the front. Alex rode super smart and made the break of the day. He was away with a few pros from Rock and Jelly Belly as well as some strong local guys. Zack and I covered the front and helped shut the race down. As laps went by it was starting to look good, but before we knew it the field started chasing furiously (under the impetus of Tony Cruz) and the break started splitting up. Alex was on the wrong side of some pro team tactics in the break and came back to the field in the last few laps. We were wasted from our efforts so not much happened in the sprint for Swami's. C'est la vie. We couldn't be too disappointed-for our first race the team rode great; it showed we'll be right in there forthe rest of the season.
More good news to come. Thanks for all your support Swami's!
Chris Daggs
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