2011 Watermelon Crit

This week I received an email from the race promoter of the 2011 Connecticut Stage Race (AKA: 2011 CSR).  The message said our local race was cancelled this year due to low pre-registration numbers.  With that large hole in the racing calendar I was a little bummed, and I needed to find something to fill it with.  As I mentioned in my previous post, I am hunting for cat 3 points, and I know my strength is racing flat criterium type races.  With all of this in mind, I decided to drive three hours to the Rutgers campus in New Jersey to race today in the 2011 Watermelon criterium event.  Yes, it may sound crazy to drive 3 hours to race in two short races, but I love crits, and I have been scouring the race calendar for places to score upgrade points, and this event sounded like I had a chance to score a few.

Following the directions to the race from the website, I found the specified parking lot quite easily.  The 4 am wakeup had made me a little groggy, but I still managed to fill out the release form as I registered for two races.  I told the guy at the registration table Cat 4 and 35+.  He looked at me and replied "45+?" inquisitively.  It was slightly humorous, since this is about the third time I've gotten this response lately.  I mean, do I really look that old?  Is it my beard?  Who cares.  With such a long drive I figured I should take advantage of the chance to score a couple of pack finishes at least.  Pack finishes, top tens, and points each count towards a USAC Cat 3 upgrade.  The gnats were plentiful at the registration area next to the start line, so I was glad to get out of there, pin up my number, and do a quick recon of the course.

The course is sort of a triangle shape (0.7 mile long) loop, but the main straightaway is curved making the turns not too extreme of angles.  The main straight at the start line goes slightly downhill, and hangs a left at the first intersection.  This turn is super fast since it was coming down hill and can be apexed way to the inside since the pavement coverage is so wide.  The back straight is basically flat, and had only a few minor potholes.  The next left has a bunch of bumps leading into the corner, which made for a rough ride for a high speed corner.  When you exit the corner, the road very slightly slants upwards, about 23 feet of vertical per lap according to my garmin.  This straight leads back to the third left turn, which swings back out onto the finishing stretch.  After my pre-ride I was pleased with the course overall.

The cat 4/5 race got underway on schedule and it was pretty fast.  It was a very large field, maybe 60 or 70 riders.  My strategy was to "sit in" and conserve, but the yo-yo or slinky effect of the massive group was burning up my legs, so I moved up in the group within the first couple of laps.  I heard a guy at the start of the race bragging to his buddies about how he led out his teammate for a win last week, so I marked that guy, and sat on his wheel in the bunch.  The race was actually a little bit boring at this point.  People at the front tried to get away, and the big engines in the group would rev it up and reel them in.  It was constant surging, but pretty uneventful.  No premes.  Bah!  The most exciting part was when some water bottles had fallen out of cages and were rolling around in the rough turn #2.  The race organizers quickly cleaned up the bottles after we passed by and removed the excitement.

I pulled up alongside my marked rider (in the green above) after about 30 minutes of racing and told him that I adopted him as a teammate since I had nobody for a lead-out.  He said he was flattered, and right away I could tell by his body language that he would set me up for a good finish.  He stayed on the outside edge of the group, and kept right up near the front.  On two laps to go the pace was flying, and I almost got taken out by a guy in a turn who swerved cat 5 style.  With the near miss behind me, I refocused on the wheel of my guy.  One lap to go, a team in light blue and white setup a train at the front.  It was full speed and they peeled off tour de france style after each one had given it their all.  I hung on in the top ten, rounded the final corner.  There was noise from a large crash right behind me. I continued to focus on sitting behind my leadout man, and when he started to sprinthe freaked slightly, rear wheel skidded sideways, but recovered quickly.  I couldn't wait, so I blew around him and chased the 10 or so guys who were already sprinting towards the finish line.  I scooped up a few places and got 5th.  Yes!  Thats worth points and counts as a top ten and a pack finish!



I hung out for a while and watched some junior racing which was cool.  They had quite a large field of young riders.  Some of the kids looked tiny on their bikes.  I also watched the womens cat 4 race, and waited for my Masters 35+ race.  My race started a little late, but once it started rolling, it felt like we were trying to make up time.  Long story short, I hung in there for quite a while.  I got into a 4 man break group that lasted maybe half a dozen laps until one of the guys threw down an attack on us.  That move blew up a group that might have been able to stay away.  At one point we had a huge gap on the field.  Once the main field gathered us up, it was attack, after attack, after attack.  Ouch.  My legs started to cry.  Then 30 minutes into the 40 minute race my legs went ka-boom.  The switch was turned off.  I rode back to my car, and packed up my stuff.  Even though my second race didn't go so well, it was another perfect day of racing in the books...

Like poking a stick in a bees nest... Out in the Break!

My Garmin data from the 4/5 race
My Garmin data from the 35+ race

...and yes, they gave away watermelons as prizes to the winners...

Did I mention that I love bike racing?