Adam entered his first race today and got second place! This is the same series he participated in two weeks ago, when he crashed. He worked very hard to get over the fear of riding in a pack again, and the effort paid off.
   The series is called the Spring Training Series , run by Quick Release Promotions . If you click on the first link, you will see Adam’s times posted. This is a small circuit, known as a criterium, maybe half a mile to a mile in length, and is run on small industrial loop on Sundays when none of the businesses on the loop is open, so there are no cars. Adam is on the junior team(under 18 yrs), which gets a lot of support in the club. Yesterday, they gave him a new helmet! The coaches take the juniors around for a few fast laps and teach them how to ride close together and become comfortable with that. The key technique is to form a paceline and take turns riding in front. The cooperation allows them to ride faster than they could alone.
   After these laps, each rider rides an individual time trial. The weather was very breezy today and cold, but Adam rode two laps of the course in 4:15sec. Two weeks ago, he rode it in 4:10, but in calm conditions. After comparing times, the riders with similar times are paired up and given a headstart according to those times. The faster riders start later, and the idea is that everyone should finish at the same time. The competitiveveness follows naturally: the rider in front try not to get caught, and the riders in the back try to catch them. Each group has to cooperate to achieve their goal.
   The race was four laps, but at end of three laps, Adam’s partner(who was faster in  the time trial) tried to drop him and go for the win, quickly building a five bike length lead. During the postrace interview, Adam says “(the other rider) made his move on the downhill portion of the course into the wind, so I relaxed, then when the wind was at our backs, I caught up to him while he was tired. When we turned back into the wind it got hard again and I got really tired.” Adam’s quick grasp of race tactics kept in him “in contact” (racing lingo) with his partner, and resulted in a losing margin of only one or two bike lengths. “I’m intelligent,” he says. If Adam hadn’t rested, he would have lost by more and probably been caught by the second group. He enjoyed riding with someone as fast as he is, and together, they held off the second group. Here is a picture of Adam in his racing apparel.