NorCal Velo reprezentz at the Fremont Early Bird Crit

The first shaking of Norcal tail feathers went down at the Early Bird Criterium in Fremont, California January 14, 2007. Claire House, Lindsay Segbers, Chandra Farnham, Melissa Cook, Melissa Pattern, and I (Mariko Fischer) along with our fantastic, unknowing-of-his-appointed-title, �race mechanic/photographer� Nick Keane, all went down together early Sunday morning to see what it was all about.

The whole experience was fantastic! The hour before the womens Cat 4 race there was some solid mentoring, where they taught us safe crit racing skills and showed us around the race loop. The course was great for an early bird because the turns werent too severe and there were a lot of straight-aways, which minimized crash potential. We did some cornering drills and pace lining/pack riding practice, all very helpful to yours truly for which this was a first race experience.

After the one hour mentoring session was over the womens cat 4 race took place. Chandra was a lone soldier for a few laps of the race as she promptly let everyone know that she was there to race and if those girls didnt get on it she just might spank them all! She got back into the pack for a little while but was consistently at the front of the group helping Melissa and I stay clear of sketchy wheels and pulling us home to the finish. Way to be a bad ass Chan-ditty.

The race was about 40 minutes long and I cant recall how many laps we did but the mentors were alongside the whole time shouting out tips to keep us from killing each other. Claire was so wonderful as to volunteer to mentor us squirrels so she was right in there with us for most of the race, and then right there at the finish yelling at the top of her lungs for us to GET ON IT!!!

Claire and Lindsay raced in the cat1/2/3 (men and women) race which let me just say was brutal! Im pretty sure I saw some pro men walking away crying and more than a few that didnt even finish the whole race! Lindsay hung tough for most of the HOUR (as opposed to our blessed 40 minutes) but when the peleton is moving at 30mph+ whats a cat 3 girl to do?!

Claire was a bad ass as she came across the finish well ahead of at least 15 or 20 of those sassy little men in spandex as the only woman who completed the whole race, YAY COACH!

For those of you interested there will be a small group of us Norcal folk going down for the EBC again this weekend (1/21) and Claire will be going down the following weekend (1/28). Send an e-mail to either one of us if youre interested in joining in! The mentoring beforehand is awesome and you can always come just to participate in the mentoring, then support your other team mates as they huff and puff in circles.

Hope to see you guys out there!! -Mariko

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