Home Course Advantage - 2019 Concord Crit

Well hot damn, that was a good one.

There is so much to say about how this race went, and I'm not sure I'll even hit it all here.

I'll lead off with paraphrasing what I said in an instagram post earlier this week. This season hasn't gone quite how I had hoped it would. With a limited race calendar and lackluster training, paired with planning for life in Northern NY, my head hasn't totally been there in races. Saturday was different. It was my last race day of the 2019 calendar, on my home course, where I got my very first criterium win back in 2016.

I lined up for the Cat 3/4 race in my older Sunapee Racing kit, intending on using this race as a hard warmup for the 1/2/3 race later in the day, and maybe to pad mine and my teammates pockets by going prime hunting. Going in, I didn't really have a plan for how the race should play out. Kramer did, Alec and Sean played along with Kramer, but I didn't. My plan was to play it by ear, knowing that the way I had come in to the race I could either go for primes or podium, but not both.

Well, early on I decided that I wanted to make sure we got some money out of our race. The first prime was early enough that I felt confident that I could go, collect the prime, and have enough time to recover for the finish as long as I didn't get caught up in a breakaway.

Well I got the prime without any contest, but nobody was bringing me back.

I didn't want to be in a breakaway this early, and certainly was not looking to stay away solo for too long this early. I dialed back my effort, putting on a show sitting up to stretch and drink, hoping to bait someone into chasing me down, but the pack was content with letting me dangle. 

Suns out, tongue's out?

So I dialed back my effort, settling in to a comfortable pace, and chilled out until the pack caught up to me two-and-a-half laps later.

 From here, my idea was to just pack-surf near the front until the closing laps and go for a bunch sprint, confident that Kramer and Alec could bring any attacks back. And for the most part, this plan worked. The race was pretty uneventful from then on.

Until right about here.

Derin, the Minuteman rider in the pink socks, launched an attack out of that corner with ~6 laps to go to collect the final prime. Like with me earlier, we were fine with letting him dangle for a couple of laps thinking that even a disorganized 3/4 field winding up for a sprint could bring back a lone rider. 

We were wrong. 

I launched a counter-attack to try and bring Derin back with 3 to go, and was quickly joined by a couple of my northern VT racing buddies Zach and Pat. Pat took a couple of deep pulls with his diesel engine before popping with a lap-and-a-half to go, and Zach and I traded off pulls until he dropped going up the climb to the roundabout on the final lap. By this point, we had put about 8 seconds into the field, and had clawed our way to within two seconds of the leader.

I managed to come over the top of Derin at the height of the course on the final lap, and dug deep to put a gap between us going into the chicane. 

I opened up a sprint going into the final corner just for insurance, and with ~150m to go, I knew that I had it locked. 

Taking home the win at my team's home race, with teammates in the field, on course, and in the announcing booth, in such a decisive fashion, was more than I could've imagined capping off my 2019 season. Hearing from the team at the post-race BBQ, the closing laps were some of the most exciting racing they've seen, and to have the flames atop the podium was icing on the cake. (I also lined up for the 1/2/3 race, but lasted 42 minutes before I realized I didn't want to be lapped a second time)

 As with last year, I am on my way back to Clarkson University, but this time in a *slightly* new role. In July, I was promoted to Interim Head Cross Country and Nordic Ski Coach, and will be taking charge of the teams starting in a couple of weeks when preseason begins!

Surviving the Thunderdome - Exeter Classic 2019

Well that was a time.

If you've been following me since last season, I finally got my Cat 3 upgrade after my final race of the 2018 season at Lewiston, and have been jumping into a handful of races so far this year to get back into racing. I trained my way through a couple of ECCC races in Pennsylvania this April, raced at Scarborough a little bit, and my usual NHMS training races, but my "real" racing has been lacking.

Having placed 8th at the Cat 3 Nutmeg State Games Crit in June and crashing out of contention on the last lap of Longsjo on Sunday, I wasn't sure how lining up for my first P/1/2/3 race at Exeter was gonna go. I had a pre-race plan of maybe going for a couple of primes, but it became clear very early on that there was no way I was going to contest anything tonight.

Exeter is one of those races that most of New England cycling dreams about. It's one of only a handful (2) twilight criteriums left on the circuit, always brings out national-caliber racers, and pays quite well if you are lucky.

It's a very punchy circuit, with fast, tight corners and an uphill sprint at the end preceded by a windy descent littered with manhole covers. All packed into a lap that is less than a mile. Oof.

The race started off, well, pretty much like this:

In the first 45 seconds of the race we were already up over 27 miles per hour down the first straightaway, on what was the slowest lap of the race. I didn't get a great start, but quickly figured out that my place in this field was about 65-70 wheels deep. I found it pretty easy to wheel-surf that far back, and the accordion effect wasn't nearly as bad as I had anticipated. The pack quickly settled into our race pace of 95-100 seconds a lap (28-29 mph) and my new goals were to just not get in the way and to not get dropped.

For the most part, my race was uneventful, hopping from wheel to wheel as riders were dropping off in front of me and clawing myself back up to the ever-shrinking peloton. It was a bizarre feeling being so far back in a bunch, though. I believe that this race was the largest field that I had ever started in, and usually for me, being "in the pack" is somewhere still in the top-25, and being more than 10 seconds behind the leaders usually meant that I was dropped and losing ground.

As mentioned earlier, my plan of trying to contest primes was quickly abandoned, and I let the big
guns handle things at the front.

As the laps ticked by (all 35 of them), I began feeling more and more comfortable taking some of the tighter corners in a group, figuring out braking and acceleration points that worked rather well, and trying to just hold on as well as I could from my position. Then, with 2 to go, this happened:

(Jump to 55:40, Paul Davis video)

That crash splintered the field enough for me to jump from the mid-50's into the low-30's with a lap and a half to go.

Coming into the second-to-last corner, some shenanigans happened in the lead bunch that caused another crash, sending a NE Devo rider over the curb just ahead of me, and from there anyone who wasn't still vying for the win had their fates sealed. The final split happened, and the rest of us had only to cross the line. 

My grupetto crossed the line 12 seconds behind the winner, and I was second to Tate in our "sprint" which was good enough for 23rd out of 92 starters. Afterwards, I felt surprisingly good about that finish. Usually I'm not super pleased with finishing outside of the top-10, but knowing the caliber of the race and how ridiculously hard it was, I'll take a top 25.



All photos from Katie Busick Photography

You win some, you lose some... Shoe City Pro Circuit

Well that was a bust. 

Practically a mirror image from GP Beverly. Great weather, a working bike, and a really good warmup had me feeling super confident going into the first bike race that Haverhill, MA has hosted in nearly 20 years, the 4/5 race at the inaugural Shoe City Pro Circuit. It was a course that suited me, lightly technical with just enough elevation to make a difference, in a field that I knew I stood a chance against. I was going to finally get those upgrade points. Things just didn't go my way when it mattered. 

I got to Haverhill my usual 2+ hours before the race, well before registration opened. No repairs to do this time, just my habit from years of skiing and running. I rolled from my parking area down to the course, still in the midst of setup and hung out and laughed with the organizers in the registration building, watching the barriers unfold throughout downtown. 

Taking my time, I spun around the course easy a couple of times just as a quick note, relaying anything I thought should be seen to the organizers, and went back to the car to kit up for warmup, just a jersey and bibs kind of day. Warm, dry, perfect.

Things went smoothly through warmup, chatting with teammates and competitors about how things post-Beverly have been, excited to be the ones to christen this race. 

As the pre-race clock ticked town, I finally took the time to roll up and change into my skinsuit, which had been sitting in my cooler of ice and water all morning: little bit of a cooldown before the race starts always feels good.

I did my final course preview laps and hung out by the line, waiting for the final call to staging. Kramer was on the mic, heckling me for hanging on the barrier, and I was taking it all in. It was a good day, I was going to do well. 

The race got off to a neutral start, something we haven't seen much this year. Chilling in the pack for the first lap, we immediately got a prime bell as the pace car pulled off the course.

I forget what this prime was for, either $20 cash or a $10 gift certificate to a local restaurant. Either way I went for it, it's what I do. Took it, sat up for a little, let the pack latch on. I wasn't about to spend 40 minutes off the front again, I was feeling frisky and wanted to play, so I let Adam York set the pace.

Laps ticked by fast, and lap 3 was one of the the fastest laps of the day in all fields. We kept the pace rolling strong through 25 minutes, launching some efforts with Tate and gunning for primes. I took home the other one of the aforementioned primes during this time, and sat back while my teammate Erik controlled the pack, covering breaks and ramping up the speeds if things got a little sketchy. Things were going better than I could've expected.

Coming into the final laps of the race, we had one of the more valuable primes: $175 to Haverhill Crossfit. For some reason I ended up at the head of the race early in this lap, a place I did not want to be for a prime. But for another reason, nobody seemed to go for it. Was it because I didn't react? Did people not know we were supposed to be sprinting? I put in a dozen hard pedal strokes to jump for the line and as far as I know nobody else reacted to it and I took it home. 

Here's where things took a turn. That prime was with four laps to go. With three laps I had settled back into the top handful of wheels, and was sitting second going into the third corner of the course. I saw first wheel hop his rear tire, probably a pedal strike, and start to go down. Coming in less than a foot from him at 25mph, I couldn't react and followed him to the ground. Neither could third, fourth, or fifth through seventh. All but one of the pre-race favorites hit the deck with less than 3k to go in the race, our days were done. 

I ended up off the course, with my bike stuck in a haybale that was used to pad a telephone pole. 

My bars were sideways, pointed skywards, and I was missing a chunk of bar tape. Looking down I could see blood on my elbow. I knew I couldn't finish solely based on the state of the bars, so I made the clunky walk with the other crash victims back to the start to seek medical.

En route, I realized that I had hit the haybale hard enough to snap my saddle nearly in half. Afterwards, before I tried to ride back to my car, I discovered that my left chainstay had snapped as well.

In talking with medical, I found that I had road rash on top of my shoulder as well as on my hip to go along with my bloody elbow. I saw Adam, who sparked the chain reaction crash, with bandages all down his leg from road rash.

I wasn't mad, just dissappointed. I was so looking forward to finally being able to get my Cat 3 upgrade, which I only needed a third place finish for. It was a great race up until my final seconds, and I still think it was one of my favorite bike races of all time so far. Road rash heals, carbon may not, but the time bookending the crash was amazing. I will be back, with a bone to pick with turn-3.

After the race, beers were had with the rest of the Sunapee Team, who had a stellar performance in the Elite Women's race, and I started piecing together what my next move would be to replace my wounded steed. Within hours of my crash, offers were coming my way from all parts of New England cycling with parts and leads as to where I could get repairs done or find a replacement frame and wheels for the remainder of the season.