Herriott Sports Performance

I’ve written my account of what went down in the Ballard crit, 2 weekends ago, MORE than once. And the fact that I am finally releasing my final draft must mean that I was deeply affected my the happening that overcast Saturday eve. in the hipster hood that is Ballard. That sounds overly dramtic but I would be lying if I said I that the results of the race did not hit me at my competitive core.

The HSP crew did NOT win the race, as most know. And if you were within ear shot of the Pro Shop the weeks leading up to the event, you would have heard us talking about the race at some point. Simply put, it was a race we were all looking forward to and a race we wanted to win. And on top of that, we were very capable of winning. That being said, wanting to win and being capable of winning are simply NOT always (usually) enough to win. The secret ingredient: lucky, needs to to be present as well. And where as I believe that we can often make our own luck, the every changing landscape that is bike racing is SO random and SO…… It can be really thankless sport. I am pretty sure a lot of guys showed up hoping to win, capable or not, holding out some hope that they might get some lucky and score big.

When I was younger, I was NOT a fan of criterium racing. Early on I got it into my head that I was a lousy sprinter. And the truth was and is that I am not the quickest cat on the street. Having grown up in the Midwest I did a lot of crit racing. Week in and week out I continued to prove that I was far from the fastest finisher in a bunch kick . It took me a while to figure out that if I wanted to have any results oriented success in those fast, short and often technical courses, that I would have to go REALLY early- as in many laps before the finish. This approach often did not pan out either, but I was onto something and I was honing my attacking skills and my TT skills in the process so it wasn;t a complete waste of my time. If you followed my career you know that even those skills were not AMAZING, but earned me some street cred. and helped me to many respectable rides. It wasn’t until I started riding on teams that actually used tactics that my style of cirt riding became useful. Rather than simply attacking myself sideways in the hopes of getting away to win alone (proven to work VERY infrequently) I learned to cover/flow into moves, and how to roll a true lead out. I found my niche and that helped me become more at ease with crit racing. And to this day I ride the crits the same way. I love to sell out and make sure my guy gets to the line first. And now that Richter is riding with me, I have that guy again and I am having a lot of fun riding myself sideways. I will admit to wishing that I had a faster finish but at this point I don’t really hold out hope that that will change.

At Ballard, the plan was simple: We were working for Dave. Plan A is/was for Dave and I to end up in a move together, but that rarely happens as the local riders know enough to get after that move, and quick. The one time that we had Plan A this year we rolled 1-2. If Plan A was not in the cards, then I was going to be on the move until 2 to go at which point I would be so scorched from covering and attacking in an attempt to get out of dodge and maybe draw out a small group that included Dave or Flash or Levin, that I would be DONE. Man oh MAN, did I cover and attack and few times I thought one of them was going to stick but NO. I ended up solo for a few laps late in the race- sooner than I would have liked, and had thoughts of MAYBE sticking it to the finish. BUT, I simply did not have the motor for that. I ended up back in the field, did my best to keep the speed up on the front and with 1 to go I drifted off into anonymity. Flash and Arron were there on point to pick up the reigns and deliver Richter to the line. I was pretty sure with one to go that we had it. On the back stretch I was still sure we had it with Dave and Aron right where they needed to be. And as I rounded the last corner in the back of the group I was expecting to look up to see Richter with his arms up. BUT, it was not to be that night. Instead Richter came second, maybe WORSE than being last in his case as he was second the year before and was as primed as could be for that night.

Here’s what happened, and this is a second hand account as I was too far back to see it for myself: Richter got pinched hard on the inside, had to brake hard, and could not recover in time to catch the gent who came on the outside with a full head of steam. And just like that, the race was over. And just like that, you can go from being super G’d to super NOT G’d. After the race we were walking around shell shocked. For the past week we have all been re-telling the same story over and over. Simply put, we missed out in Ballard. The team rode very well together and I /we did a lot things right. Of course we sat around talking about what if, what if, what if- a similar conversation that I had when I was a 17 yr old junior, a 24 yr old aspiring amateur, and 32 year old professional. And now a 40 yr old….. person ( I dares say not a Master just yet). No doubt I will have that conversation again with my teammates again before the year is out. The good news for us is that there are some great crits left this season and we are more amped than ever for those- would we be if we had won Ballard? I’m sure.

Winning sure feels good, and I enjoy it as much as anyone. That being said, winning bike races is really hard, no matter what category or what race. If it were easy then everyone would win all of the time. But only 1 person gets to win. You can ride a so so race and still end up in the font at the end and win and you can ride a nearly perfect race, feel great and be right where you need to be for the final and…. end up on the ground, on the brakes or whatever. You need some luck. But you also need to be ready to deal with the luck and the opportunity if may afford you. If you haven’t the fitness or the experience to make the kinds of decisions you need to make in the heat of battle, you won’t be able to get it done. We’ll have more opportunities to put experience and hard work to the test in the coming weeks and months and if all goes to paln, we’ll enjoy a little bit of lucky as well.

Best,
TH