USA Cycling National Criterium Championships, Downer's Grove, Illinois

[quadsRme]

Did anyone else have the opportunity to get soaked in the rain yesterday in Downers Grove?
I was at the race for about a hour and when the rain picked up again, I split.
The race was delayed twice.

Luis Amaran (Colavita-Sutter Home) did a phenomenal job of holding off the field for ~70k.
This is a small course ~1.2 miles and half of it is uphill with 8 turns!!

In past years the breakaways would never last anywhere near that long. Usually the filed absorbs the break and then absorbs the next break and so on. I have never seen a successful break like yesterdays effort.

Congrats to Luis even though he didn't win the race. He sure chalked up a bunch of preen $$$.

 

[Hooptie]

I just posted my pics, mostly of the Pro W and Elite Men, I took off shortly after the pro race started.

The woman's race was animated by some surprising Tibco tactics, all hell broke loose when Kat Carroll launched a 2 to-go attack out of the Tibco lead-out train.
Here she is jumping the train.

The Elite Men's race faced some mid-race treachery when the skies opened up and dumped for 15 min....
Check out the peril

Late in the race a 2 man break turned into 5, and just barely stuck.
Here is the inital attack.

And the resulting glory.

More pics here...
http://otbphoto.smugmug.com/Road/862701