By Ryan Hostetter -- Early Bird Crit #5 (W2) -- 01/30/10

Hello All....

As I was getting off work Friday night and going out to dinner with the hubby I was thinking about what I was going to do for rides this weekend and a lightbulb went off.... why not go do some fun races here on the central coast instead? So at 8 pm I texted some local gals here to jump into a car pool and head down toward Solvang and Santa Barbara for a race weekend to get myself tuned up and ready for Valley of the Sun with the Metromint gals.

What a fun spontaneous weekend it was! I was thinking about all my comrades up at team kamp riding their booties off, having cocktails and playing games... and got inspired to go kick my own booty down here. So whenever I saw someone make a move in the race I was thinking about the famous China Grade cocktail Molly created and jumped to get on every move I could in the races (and feel the burn each and every time).

Road Race - Well long story short: 68 miles (34 mile out and back two times)rolling hills and one pack breaker little climb in the middle of the course, windy... ouchie. 12 ladies - 5 of them Colavita club team riders from Las Vegas... ouchie again. Well one can only chase down a superteam in the race so many times and I gave it my all and tried to rally the other troops in the field (all 7 of them) and it was not so easy to do so on the last lap little climb (and I am not a climber) I thought about our clinic with Nicole Freedman and decided to take her non climber advice - jump and get as far as you can up that hill to go over the top with the group. Well that is what I did but being a little antsy I went too early and they blew by me half way up the climb. It was a valiant effort and the finish was just on the other side after a downhill so I rolled in behind them, but boy was that fun and I was able to splinter some other people off with that move. Great practice and an awesome workout that one.

Mothballs Crit - One of my favorites because as usual in this area the weather was like 70, sunny, college kids in their flip flops and tanks, girls in their mini skirts and Uggs etc. etc. The field was just about 40 with lots of big So Cal sprinter/crit teams and because my sprint is not too hot at the moment I decided to yet again slay myself throughout the race and play games with the field try to form a break and not worry about blowing myself up (its training right?). Well I was able to bring back about 4 of Colavita's breaks and some from NOW... almost formed a break with a NOW girl but nothing stuck and all of a sudden it was 2 laps to go (that goes fast when you are covering the front/attacking the race the entire time). The sprinters all moved up and the teams all did their leadouts... my legs were sorta toasted so I finished somewhere mid pack but had a blast doing it.

I had a super fun weekend on the central coast practicing my skillz and hope to put them to good use at the next one: Valley of the Sun here we come!

Ryan Hostetter
Women Cat 2 roadie
slayer extraordinaire