I know it’s a week after the fact, AND I know that it’s no longer called the Ballard Crit, but I also use the terms Seahawks Stadium and FRENCH fries, so eat my shorts! Maybe pommes frites, but NEVER, EVER would I use the term freedom fries, for obvious reasons.

So, back to the subject matter that was previously being discussed. Ballard Crit. Some folks who aren’t into bikes will need some clarification, and DP, I’m gonna need your help ID’ing some of the riders. So crit is short for criterium race. A criterium race is a race that is held on a short course, usually less than a mile in length, and the riders do laps around the course for a set length of time. The time period depends on the Category of riders that are racing, and usually lasts between 35 and 75 minutes, with European pro crits lasting 90 minutes in some cases. These races are bonkers, mainly because the length of time is so short that people are able to go full tilt for the entire race. I heard my Dutch buddy Ol’ Splinterfoot say one time, “I can fake anything for an hour.”, and that’s just about it. Balls to the wall… The downside to that (or upside, depending on where you’re at) is that one needs bike-handling skills in a crit, because there is a lot of jostling going in the pack and when everybody is bunched up going around a sharper-than-90-degree corner, it can get hairy.

I went down to the race while the Cat 4s and 5s were going off and I met up with Dave R, and we watched and got food and hung out. I took a couple photos here and there. Then Dave left, but I wanted to stay and take more pics. So when the Pro/Cat1/2 race went off, I got myself right there at the first corner with my camera at the ready. It was dry, so there weren’t any spectacular wrecks, but here are some of the photos I got.

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