Written by Marco Lei

The Giro di San Francisco is one of my favorite crits of the season. It’s local, technical, with railroad tracks, lots of potholes and cracks, a small up hill and typically a large field – everything a crit racer could wish for.  With the podium finish two days prior, I’m coming into this race with high hope of getting good results. This race has always felt special to me. I ride these roads every morning as my office is right outside the race course. And for the past few years, Team Mikes Bikes have won and podium-ed across the categories, and I want to make this year super special and be part of this legacy. So, as usual for a crit day, I signed up for 2 races and wanted to use this first race (35+4) as a warm up, before the exciting (E4/5) race that features over 70 racers and racing with teammates!

The race started on time, on a typical windy and cold San Francisco morning. But the race heated up very quickly at lap #3, a 2-men break was established. We were able to bring one back, but the other guy got too far away and basically the group decided to stop chasing.  At that point, we were racing for 2nd place, and there were small attacks up the hill and out of the final corner almost every lap until the end of the race. Nobody would let anything go away at that point.  As we were fighting for position into the last lap, I took 2nd wheel into the final 2 corners, got a good look to the finish line. It was an exciting bunch sprint and I took 3rd across the finish line – finishing 4th in the race.  Not the finish I was expecting, but I did all I could to put Team Mikes Bikes onto the podium.

I was ready to take this momentum into the E4/5 race to support my teammates.I’m so stoked that Team Bikes Bikes racer Chris Ahl took 4th in that race. Unfortunately, I flatted at 2 to go and couldn’t be there to provide the lead out as planned.Overall, good results for the weekend as this mark the end of my planned race season. Looking forward to more amazing results and teamwork with Team Mikes Bikes in 2019!