What's a "crit"?

[Eden]

Its a race with a very short circuit - generally less than a mile or two, often run around several city blocks. They are more common in the US, but seen in other countries too. They are most often raced for a set amount of time + 2 or 3 laps. They are hard and fast races with a lot of cornering so they are considered to be one of the more difficult types of races and are often intimidating for new racers. There is a wikipedia entry http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Criterium

my husband has a theory that way back a bit around the turn of the century when velodrome racing was very popular in Europe the US loved bike racing too, but didn't have too many velodromes - so the small towns made do with what they did have - city blocks and the criterium became very popular here.