Tony Cruz's Long Beach Training Crit.

So I decided to make the Tony Cruz training crit my first speed ride since getting home from Qatar. Easy right? No I'm pretty sure I got my face stopped in by the locals. It was a pretty hard ride I had to look over at Tony to make sure it wasn't just me. I reassured me it wasn't (laugh) I had an average of about 300 watts for an hour and had to talk myself out off pulling out of the ride twice. My brothers had been talking about this guy that would smash the ride in the past few weeks but did not know his name, so I dubbed him Racer-X. Some say he lives on the moon and is so fast because there's no gravity up there, others say he hatched from a egg like a bird and that's why he seems to just fly away from groups. We just call him Racer-X. I was on a mission to shut them up and prove this guy was not as tough as they had thought. The ride started pretty mellow which was good cause I've been chilling the whole day it was hard to get the legs going, in fact the only reason I road was to try out the new helmet camera we put together at Predator for this weekends Merco Crit. I stayed toward the front of the ride and the attacks came one after another maybe about 60 guys started but soon there was 20, Racer-X kept hitting hard but as a marked man he didn't get far, I wasn't impressed. After about an hour of wanting to cut my legs off it was 5 to go, all I could think was its about time. Little brother (Cory Williams Current CRIT National Champion) was sitting on my wheel and I told him it was his night. It was 2 laps to go Tony hit us hard on a surprise attack that strung the field out, I was sitting 4th with Cory on my wheel, 1 Lap to go I bought my time and hit with about 600 Meters to go, I got to the last corner and he finished the job off. Overall the ride was good. A great simulation and a pretty hard effort. The ride starts at 7:30pm on Wednesday,  has great lighting on every stretch but one. If your looking to blow your legs and learn some bike handling skills you should head out. There's also a slow group for guys in not so great shape but always remember there's a few Pro guys out there and Racer-X so it's no walk in the park if you can finish the ride feeling OK, you are ready for the local scene and should do pretty well. -Justin Williams