Race Report

A brief race summary about the Wednesday night crit, for http://www.hscycles.com/ by yours truly:

With the remains of tropical storm Edouard clearing off earlier in the day, 43 lyrca clad cyclist lined up ready for a slugfest. Temperatures relatively cool for a Houston summer evening, it promised to be fast with the omnipresent GCCA, including Joseph LaFico, returning to his Houston roots, the strong duo from GS Tenzing of Ricky May and Brain Adams and a slew of Bike Barn riders.

The race started out in normal fashion with multiple riders taking one lap flyers but with the pace high, nothing was sticking for long. The first significant break included Felix Guardo (GCCA) and Alex Lewis (Bike Barn), working together to build up a sizable gap and stay off the front for about 6 laps and split the first prime—homemade cookies. Soon after, they returned to the pack. Attacks started going left and right lacking the perfect combinations nothing lasted more than a lap or two. A break of two Bike Barn, a GCCA, and GS Tenzing riders rolled off the front for approximately 5 laps before being pulled back in. As the back was strung out, riders started attacking each other hoping to get off the front for the final 15 minutes. Lafico laid down a hard attack with about 5 or 6 to go that was covered by Chris Lowery (Sugar Cycles) and Mitch Comardo (Bike Barn). Soon after, Rob Sisk (Bike Sport) bridged across bringing Lewis with him. The group quickly started rotating and gaining a gap. But the pack was unwilling to let a group roll off the front with only a few laps remaining. With the breaks imminent demise, Comardo launched himself off the front with 3 laps to go. This results in a furious and disorganized chase with him getting pulled back with 1 lap to go. With no team willing to take control of the lead out, Henk Calderon (M7 Racing) jumped hard into the second to last turn with Kevin Kremke (Bike Barn) and Richard Lamb (Southern Elite) quickly latching onto his wheel. Around the final left-hand bend Kremke and Lamb went head to head in a drag race sprint with Kremke taking the win over Lamb and Calderon sprinting for 3^rd.