AVC easy as 123

by: Sabine Dukes

The American Velodrome Challenge is sort of the NRC of track racing. I remember watching the San Jose stop of the AVC last year at Hellyer. I had just started racing on the track and I was in total awe of the women’s racing.

So, one year later, I’m still in awe. I had planned on just watching and partaking of the free wine offered at the AVC, but bella Andrea had made the trip down from Portland to race, and well, you know how i love myself some teammates.

I decided to do the miss and out and the scratch race.

The miss and out is like musical chairs. Each lap there is a sprint, and the last one across the line is out. Repeat until you are down to three and then sprint. I hate the miss and out. It gives me anxiety attacks. I was a complete nervous wreck at the start, wondering what I was doing. Since I am horrible at positioning, I decided to take the front. While this is the safest place to be, its also the most work because there is no draft. I am in no kind of fitness to be pulling such a stunt, but, damn it was fun anyway. I lasted quite a few more rounds than expected and then I finally blew up and was out. I finished 11th, which is just out of the official placings. I almost placed at an AVC!

Susie was waiting with some wine for me to celebrate.

Next up was the Scratch Race. A scratch race is like a mini criterium. First across the line at the end wins. Simple enough. Except Proman was out in force to attack and set Shelly up for the win. The stop and go of responding to attacks was getting tough because I was in my massive 93inch gear. So, I decided to attack where at least I could roll at a constant speed. I bridged up to Hanan, but just as I caught her, I could see she was fading. Damn. I made it out there for almost two laps, so that was exciting. The rest of the race I mostly just recovered from that effort. Afterwards, I wondered what I was thinking by attacking, but what the hell. In the end, shelly lapped the field, and Andrea finished strong in the top ten. (andrea placed an awesome 4th in the sprints too!)

Susie was waiting again with some more wine to Celebrate.

While I was definitely outclassed, I am so glad I did those races. It was a complete thrill to line up and race with so many strong women. A total thrill.

And the wine was good too.

Thanks to Rob Evans for the photo.

This fabulous post was written by one of our awesome bella volunteers ~ Sabine is the cofounder of Velo Bella and if you like this report, you can thank her with brownies and beer.