My Blog

 These past couple day have been a blur as I raced Thursday night in MA, and then drove 5 hours to middle of nowhere New York state for  2 National Racing Calendar crits.

Starting off was the Legacy Banks crit.  It was absolutely ridiculous.  It started at 6:30 pm, capping of the Pittsfield Downtown festival.  This meant there were over 1000 people watching the race.  The start finish stretch was about 300 yards long, we had half the road, the other half was packed solid with people.  As you came through the stretch, you felt the roar of the crowds echoing off the buildings and reverberating right through you.  They had a radio station spinning tunes and the local news station around filming.  I almost took out a camera because the camera man posted up right on the inside edge of turn three as I was trying to move up the inside.  

The kicker is I got the 3rd Call up to the front row.  I was the only non Pro/1 called up.  I had to get prodded to go to the line because I was so shocked to get called up.

It was a great competition as well with all the top MA pros coming out to tune up for the Chris Thater NRC crits.  Hopefully I can find the news story and video.

After the Legacy banks race, I headed off to Binghamton, NY.  Thursday had been the test of the legs against the pros, now I got to pick on the humans.  I took off the front of the race with 6 miles to go in Saturdays 3-4 race and won with 45 seconds to spare.  This collected some attention because there were 4 teams with 5 or 6 guys working for sprinter that got duped.  I also got to talk to a couple of other riders as I search for a team.

Sunday, in  front of another packed house(we were the race right before the Pros) I missed the break of 5 riders who went on to lap the field.  Rather than sit around and mope like the rest of the field, I went on the attack to try to bridge up to the leaders, this didn't quite work, however, I dragged 8 people out of the group to form a solid chase group before I attacked at 3 laps to go for 6th.  I was joking with my friends that I should learn how to sprint so I don't have to work so hard.  However, I learned that when you see someone open it up and rocket out 40+ mph sprints, the only chance I have to beat them is not sprint against them.

I should also add in the math.  In the first race, I beat the field home by over 45 seconds, the second race, the group who lapped the field got 2 minutes up, i made up 1.5 minutes before I ran out of race.  I then beat my chase group who didnt get lapped by 35+ seconds.

After this there is the Green Mountain Stage Race and then its CROSS Season!!!