2018 SoCal Fixed Series: The Mission Impossible Crit

It was when the guy picked up the big #4 sign and the bull horn spoke - "four laps to go" - that I noticed my feet felt especially hot. I picked one up off the ground for a look and said "damn it," not because I missed a good shot, but because I was going to have to buy a new pair of sandals; the soles had been completely melted away to paper thinness, and that plus socks just was not keeping out the heat. Ah well, what would you expect for a parking lot crit in southern California at the end of July.

The occasion was the third and final race in this summer's SoCal Fixed series. Billed as the Mission Impossible Crit, and held at Mt. San Antonio College (Mt SAC) and, as parking lot criteriums typically are, the course flowed around a technical layout with many twists and turns. Those twists and turns were guaranteed to cause some weariness to creep into the legs of most riders out there. The course designer(s) used wider sweeping turns wherever they could, but there were still places where momentum would be lost, and have to be built back up. Remember fixed-gear bikes only - what you brought was all you got. Couple that with surges by other competitors, and that energy-sapping heat, and I think you can imagine that it would not take the full forty-five minutes plus five laps for racers to feel the burn.

Among the things I have always liked about these grassroots races is the unpredictability of them. You can go to a USA Cycling race and pretty much know what you are going to get; they are, largely, quite predictable. There is no criticism in that, mind you - when races are even there tend to be good finishes with many active participants. Fixed gear races are a mixed bag by comparison, and when you open up that bag, you never know what will spill out. This past Sunday, if you were anything other than an "Elite" you were in the "Attack" race. That is a whole lot of people of varying ability and experience; riders were being lapped before the race was half over. Meanwhile at the front attrition was a sure thing; little by little the group pushing the pace became smaller and smaller, riders having been dropped being encouraged by Luis to keep pushing because he "didn't want to have to pull any more riders today." Many heeded the plea and pushed themselves to new levels of effort in order to out race the threat from that megaphone of doom. It was good stuff, and the mystery of who would survive lasted the entire race.

that's it. back to the office

I was wilting just from watching; I mean, who the heck builds a parking lot with no shade trees anyway? The photo album contains a selection of 141 photos from start to finish of both the Attack and Elite Women's races.