Rutgers Weekend, the circuit race

Another day of getting up at 6am to ferry bikes over to the start so that the D's could race. I do really miss getting sleep on weekends. But hey, that's what the weekdays are for, right?

After dropping off said bikes, we piled into another car and headed to breakfast at IHOP. We came hungry and left happy. We also beat the hungry Christians to breakfast...at 10am that place had a line out the door when church must have let out. While it sucks having to get up so early, it's great racing in the afternoon because you can eat anything you want for breakfast...including a stack of pancakes, bacon, and three eggs!

I waited around for an eternity before our race got underway. This was arguably my first pack race of the season, since my single lap in Saturday's criterium doesn't really count as anything significant. It really is remarkable how well the A field rides in comparison to the others. They're so smooth through turns and it's actually comfortable to take a turn at speed with these guys.

The first few laps were pretty uneventful, but that soon changed...

There was a significant amount of rough pavement on the lower section of the course that had the field riding all over the place and into the left hand (on-coming) lane. I was getting pretty jarred from hitting the mostly unavoidable potholes and linear cracks. Penn State rider Adam was allegedly grabbing his water bottle when he stacked it really hard. Someone said he hit a bump while reaching and wedged the bottle between his front wheel and downtube or something similar. Luckily I was far enough way to avoid him, his bike, and the offending beverage vessel. However, the slowdown at the rear of the field caused a small gap to open that I had to work fairly hard to close. This gap shed fellow Cornellian, Cameron, who had previously done a lot of work at the front of the field in small attacks. Another unfortunate incident befallen Cornell riders. But in consideration of what happened to Adam, it's an insignificant matter at best.

On the next lap, the field passed Adam as he was being waiting for the ambulance, lying on the ground. This caused a significant change in the tone of the race. If we were being "safe" before, everyone was extra careful now. Seeing something like that really puts it all in perspective. It's not worth the risks some people take. In any case, on the next time through, race marshals halted the race and told us to return to the start/finish area so that EMS could get access.

The 20 minute stoppage in the race allowed the whole field to start fresh (including Cameron) so that changed the race quite a bit. Additionally, the course was diverted to go around the area of the accident. I don't know why they didn't do that in the first place. As we started up again, you could hear everyone groaning about their legs. At least I wasn't the only one.

The remaining laps were fairly uneventful...until the last one. Up to this point, the sprinters controlled the race as they sent teammates to the front to neutralize any attacks. As we came through for the bell lap, it became even more evident this was going to be a 35 person pack sprint. Great!...ugh.

Cameron took advantage of the slow pace and shot off on a solo break. The field took some attention, but did little more than let him dangle 20m off the front of the field. He held it for 3/4 of the lap before he was joined by a couple others. In the meantime, I was marking a couple guys I knew to have a good turn of speed in the finishing sprint. Perhaps I could ride their wheels to a decent finish???

Turns out that plan changed quickly. As we hit the last right hand turn onto the finishing stretch, I was sitting fourth or fifth wheel. I nailed the inside line, stood up, and went for it...at 800m from the line! I knew this was a suicide move at its finest, but I wanted to be out front of anything that could happen as riders set up for the sprint. Initially I opened up a small gap that Cameron seemed to think would stick. Ha! I knew it wasn't to last, but I gave it the gas anyway. Cornell riders may not be smart, but they're crazy! I was that poor soul you see in pro races hanging 10m off the group, with the impending doom of the peloton bearing down on him.

I looked back at 600m to go and found the entire field strung out behind me. I was the leadout man for a 35 person finishing sprint! I thought about swinging clear across the road so that I could get out of the way since my legs were fried. I then thought better about it and just held my line straight. With 200m to go, I got swarmed by every rider in the field as they came around me in every conceivable direction. Just hold your line and you'll be fine...and I was. I let the entire field pass and then rolled in a few seconds after. Not too bad. I couldn't care less about my finishing spot in a race like that, especially when I haven't ridden for more than an hour (or even outside) in several months. And I can't sprint anyway... But that was a ton of fun- I can't wait to do it practically every weekend from now until September. Ahh, bike racing...

WHERE ARE THE HILLS?!?!