Weekend Race Wrap-Up

--Saturday--
The Cherry Blossom Cat 3 race (part of the NJ Cat 3 Cup schedule) sure put the 'turd' in Saturday. Craig and I showed up at the course, pro-style, at about noon. It was nice to sleep in but threw a bit of a wrench into the when/what to eat equation. We had PBJ sandwiches about 45 minutes before the start. Mistake #1.

We warmed up a bit on the roads around Branch Brook Park and took in the sights and sounds of the Cherry Blossom Festival. We headed back to the course and decided to pre-ride one lap. When we came around to the start-finish area, the lap board said '18' and the Juniors were already rolling out behind the start-finish. We had missed the start. Mistake #2.

We discreetly joined in after missing out on the first lap and had a rather boring and uneventful race. I was away with a young but strong 3D rider for a while with the biggest gap of the day, according to Craig. We got brought back because that's what happens in stupid races. With 2 laps to go, we started to set up for the finish. There's only one turn on the course so there wasn't much to separate out the rif-raff. Mistake #3 (admittedly, not my fault).

The 'sprint' wound up from about 500m out after some thorough douchebaggery committed by the Major Taylor idiots. A wall of six or seven riders formed the front as they dragged to the line. There was nowhere to go. No holes, no gaps, just stupidity. I sat up with 100m left and counted myself lucky not to have crashed.

--Sunday--
Jim set the tone for the day by riding off the front of the field in his Cat 5 race and eventually taking 2nd to some stoopid-strong Cat 2 from Guyana . . . huh?! Great job Jim.

I was pretty motivated from the frustration I had from SaTURDay, so heading into the Rahway River Park Criterium, I was pretty excited. I was looking forward to working for Mark in the 3/4 race and also to testing my mettle in the P/1/2/3. Our plan for the 3/4 was to put at least one guy in every break. I happened to bridge to what ultimately was the winning break when I saw Pluto coming back from it.

With a little over 1 lap to go, a DKNY guy made a sneaky move and rolled through the front of the break with no one responding. Everyone else in the break acted dumb and flatly refused to bring him back. Silly them, as they must not have known I could/would handily crush them in the sprint. And I did for a rather frustrating 2nd.

I had about an hour to an hour and a half between races so I snagged Dave's trainer (thanks Dave!) to keep the legs loose. It was a lot of fun to have a large crew to jaw with on the sidewalk.

Craig decided to man up and race the P/1/2/3 with me and Andy so I had some team support. The pace was pretty high from the start but I was able to be active a bit early on. When I thought the pace was hard enough but not too hard, I put in a strong attack and was quickly joined by two diesel engines and, later, a third bridged to us. After a few laps, I was suffering just sitting on the back, not taking pulls and eventually came unhitched. Too bad, it was the winning break.

Back in the field, I had good help from Craig and Andy on the final lap. Andy, a.k.a. The Derny Bike, did a great job pulling me up into position on the left. Unfortunately, another sneaky move got made and the response was on the right. I lost position quickly but was able to grab a wheel and take 3rd in the field sprint for 6th overall. It was encouraging to be sprinting around guys like they were standing still. The only two guys I didn't catch were sneaky guy and Gui Nelessen, former pro. I needed just 10 more meters to catch Gui.

Overall, I'm satisfied with the weekend. It was a rather humbling experience (but not THAT humbling) to suffer so much in the break. I was definitely out-matched, out-gunned, out-powered, out-everythinged. I'm happy I was able to hang in there (almost) with at least two former pros.