Zeeland Criterium - 6-28-13

Last night's race was one of the most enjoyable crits I've done.  This was a Cat 3/4 field and we went in with 7 guys so we were expecting to have some good results.  It started out super fast right out of the gate.  We were all strung out single file for about the first 20 minutes.  I was totally on the rivet.  Right then I was thinking, "crap, there goes all of our plans."  I was just trying to hang on.  After about 20 minutes of hard effort the group came back together a bit and Lewis went up the road solo.  I had no energy to try to get on the front and sit on it and after 2-3 laps the group brought him back in.  After about a lap of easy pedaling Joe went on a break with 3 other solid Cat 3s.  This was the opportunity for the team to assemble at the front and shut the chase down by soft pedaling through the corners and then ramping it up a little through the straightaways.  Just enough to keep people from being motivated to chase.  One rider ended up bridging but we were confident that Joe could hold his own in the sprint.  Within a few laps they had increased the gap to about 30 seconds and with about 10 laps to go I knew that they would probably stay away.  Me, Jesse, Pete, John and Lewis all sat at the front and did our job to make sure that nobody stood a chance of pulling the group back together.  With about 3-4 laps to go Pete took a good hard the front and again, kept it just fast enough to keep anybody from wanting to come around.  With 2 laps to go I jumped on the front with John and Lewis in tow and kept a close eye on the pack to see if anyone would jump, one guy did but we quickly caught him.  With a lap to go I ramped it up and led the field pretty hot into the first turn.  Coming out of the second turn there was a good straight-away and I knew I needed to keep the speed high here.  I took us through a quick left and then right in turns 3 and 4 and then drilled it into a longer straight section.  If someone was going to make an early move it would be here.  Nobody came around.  Going through turn 5 I sprinted hard and gave it everything I had left as my finish line was really turn 6; the final turn into the finish.  I took the corner wide and John and Lewis sprinted hard for the line.  In the end, Joe took 5th after getting pushed out into the gutter on the finishing sprint and Lewis took 1st in the field sprint (6th overall) thanks to strong legs and some good team work.  The rest of us worker bees came in with the field but we had done our job.  Our goals for the race were to have someone in the break and win the field sprint and that's exactly what we did.  We rounded out the night with a little team dinner at The Public House (awesome food and beer!).  And made the drive back home to Kalamazoo.

-Jon Ballema

Jon is a Cat 4 racer, husband, and soon to be father in addition to his role as team president.  He's worked hard over the last few years to increase teamwork and camaraderie as well as promote the sport of cycling throughout the area.


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