Photo credit: Tour de Delta
Arguably the MK Delta Crit is one of the hardest races of BC Superweek. The circuit is rectangular with a fast down hill into a tight left turn on one of the long sides, and a grinding climb on the backside, and he start/finish is directly after the final left. Due to the closeness of the line, the race for all intents and purposes is a race to the fourth corner. This is because it is next to impossible to come around a rider in the last short, fast stretch.
In the past, the Trek Red Truck Women’s Team has had success with Denise winning this race from a break. The race plan was to be aggressive and force a break; with world class sprinters like Joelle we needed the race to be hard on her and make her and all the sprinters work as much as possible before going to the line.
After an aggressive attack from Denise, I countered and then she countered again. We must of done at least four back-to-back attacks before we got a break. In this break of two, Joelle and I went really early then another larger group of about 10 bridged up to this move. I was happy to see Denise had made the selection for this large break. With the two of us in the move we now needed to keep the pressure up and launch someone out of the break.
Denise and I went at it again attacking and countering, however the break was too large for us to break free; our moves were getting absorbed into the large number of people. During the race Denise and I both spent several laps off the front of the group in our attempt to break up the group and tire out Joelle. Despite our best efforts, Joelle launched a lethal counter attack on the last lap and finished solo to take the win. I was able to scrape together enough energy to sprint for fourth – just shy of that podium.
Despite just missing the podium, the team could still hold our heads high. This was a great first race of BC Superweek. As a team we did what we had to do to race aggressively, animate the race, and give ourselves the best shot at the win. After the race was over the race organizer came up to me and introduced herself. She thanked Trek Red Truck for racing so hard and making the race immensely exciting to watch. She commented that the Trek Red Truck Women made that race and as such next year the women’s race deserved the prime spot.