Melon City Criterium Elite 4's

    My first race of the Memorial Weekend Bike Races was in Iowa was in Muscatine, IA on Sunday May 30, 2010. Saturday was the 'Snake' and I won't do the 'Snake' again until I get the weight down. Melon City is a unique crit in its own sense. It is a much much harder race than it appears to be. It is in a park adjacent to a community college and nice little neighborhood. It is somewhat a climber’s crit in my opinion. Its no Snake Alley by any means but it still a tough one regardless of the Cat you race. No real sharp turns but is basically a race up and down a good size hill in a circle! The unique (and fun!) part is the ‘Speed Hump’ at the very bottom of the downhill that if you want to carry your speed into the climb you need to bunny hop. I assumed that we were jumping the speed hump between 30-35 mph based on feel. However, after downloading my Garmin data, I was jumping it at 35-40 mph.

    As for the race itself, it was pretty uneventful. I wasn’t much of a player in it after 3 or 4 laps and then was just struggling to stay attached which I did for another lap and then dangled behind the MOTO for a couple more before I was ‘officially’ OTB (off the back) and OOC (out of contention). From there on it was just finish it out. On the positive side, I held on longer than I did last year where I was way off the back the 2^nd time up the hill.