Peres Family Adventures: Golden State Criterium--May 22, 2010

It was our first family race day! All five of us raced! Steve started the day off racing with the Elite 5s. He did great...a pack finish! He loved it. It was fun to watch them go around and around, again and again.
Next it was my turn racing with the women's elite 4s. It was a good race. I rode more aggressively this time, trying breakaways and such. This group was definitely in better shape than the group I raced against in January. When it came down to the final lap I knew I had a chance to place in the top 3 if all went well. Unfortunately, as we came around the last turn I had to avoid two women who were about to crash, so I had to take a wide turn. I lost my momentum and tried to catch the rest of the group. There wasn't really any wheel for me to jump on so I had to just go for it. I stood and sprinted my guts out up the left side, but two more women decided to start moving in towards the left side ahead of me. I sat down and yelled "on your left" so they'd stay on their line and then was able to stand and continue sprinting. Too many disruptions this time. I ended up in 9th. Not too shabby. It was a good race.
Last but not least, it was the boys' turn to race. They had a free kids race. We like free! They had the ages split up so Joshua raced with the 5 and under kids and Scott and Noah raced with the 6-10 kids. Joshua's race was only a few hundred yards. He raced against two other boys with superior bikes and who obvious had been riding 2-wheelers a little longer than Joshua had. Joshua was great! He cruised to the finish and happily took 3rd place! After the race was over he voiced his disappointment that the race was not an hour long. What a guy!
Scott and Noah had about 10-12 kids in their race. We could see right away that Scott was in a gear way too easy and needed to shift, but he got the hang of things eventually. Scott took 2nd and Noah took 3rd. They were great! What a learning experience for them!