My Summer Cycling Wrap-up

2011 was a pretty wild summer of cycling for me.  I went to a couple of stage races early in the season to see if my winter training would give me enough strength and endurance to finally climb out of the Cat 4s.  I had been a Cat 4 since the late 90's, but I'd never had a solid enough season to get any results.  This year I was able to build on top of my conditioning from the cross season, and also learned a bunch from teammates help, and learned some from my past mistakes.

The first stage race in the end of April was the Bennington Stage Race (AKA: Tour of the Dragons).  This was a new event on the calendar, but it drew a handful of fellow teammates.  Our Expo guys carpooled and spent a bunch of time eating and hanging out together in a cool part of Vermont.  I had an especially great time at the crit and had a 6th place result and did a fairly detailed write up about the race.  Granted, it was only a cat 4 crit, but we still had an average speed of 24.3 mph.  This positive start to my season had given me hope to finally getting my Cat 3 upgrade this year.  (I left out the part where I got dropped on the hilly road race)

My second stage race of the season was the Tour de Syracuse in the end of May.  I had shown up with high hopes, but had them dashed by not being focused in the crit, and not being focused in the time trial.  I had some issue with distraction those days, and I still don't know what it was.  Perhaps it was the points series format that I wasn't familiar with.  Or maybe the long drive in the car, or the food I ate the night before.  Whatever it was, I had a disappointing event and the hilly road race didn't help.  A few good things came out of this race.  The first was a few new friends.  The second was the fact that I need to focus in a race or I fail.  The third was the realization that I needed to avoid races with hills.

Once the summer was underway I went to the local Tuesday night crit at the Rent, which is promoted by CVC.  My best Tuesday night of the year I rode the "B race" and then followed it up with riding the "A race".  This night was notable because I think it was the most and fastest racing I have ever done in one night.  Over 38.5 miles in 1.5 hrs.  The average speed of the "A race" was 27.2 mph!
On Wednesday nights I was either helping or riding our local time trial promoted by our club the Expo Wheelmen.  I also raced the Sturbridge Mass Time Trial one night.

I started to scour the calendar for races without hills and in the beginning of June I drove to New Jersey for the Watermellon Crit.  My sixth place result started to give me hope again.  I also raced in the Masters race and got into a break for a while.  I ended up blowing up since I didn't have quite enough endurance for two races in a row that day.

The day after being in New Jersey, I decided to mix things up a little and did a Cat 2 mountain bike race at Domnarski Farm.  I finished a hilly mountain bike race top 10 with a 1:01:53 lap time.  My goal was to crack an hour, but I'll need to try harder next year.

The following weekend I found a gold medal in my hands for a third place finish at the Nutmeg Games.  The reason I was a gold medalist, was because I was the top finisher from the State of Connecticut.  The net result for me was more upgrade points, and a great experience.

This is the point when summer started to get a little crazy.  It seemed like something was going on every weekend.  Plus my teammates were showing up at the local races and working hard to keep things together and pushing the pace on the final laps to keep things strung out.
Feeling like I needed points because of local events being cancelled, I drove to NYC for the Harlem crit.  This was a points format crit, so every 5 laps the riders sprint for points.  Whoever has the most points at the end of the race wins.  I attacked on one of the wrong laps and got frustrated.  It was not a great day for me.

Throughout the rest of the summer I kept training and racing the Tuesday night crits.  I raced the Attleboro Masters crit which averaged almost 27 mph.  It was crazy to be in a bunch sprint with such a bunch of fast racers.  At the New Britain crit I got another sixth place finish in the Cat 4 race.

And finally I finished my road racing season for this year at the Naugatuck crit.  I signed up for three races for the day.  The first race was a Cat 4/5 and I won the bunch sprint on the final lap, but since a rider had gotten away off the front, it netted me second place.  Then I jumped into the Masters race, but my body needed more recovery time, so I only did part of the race and then bailed out.  Then I lined back up for the Cat 3/4 race and finished it up near the top ten in the bunch sprint.  The race was a race filled with crashes, and I was thankful to end my season safe.

After all of my 2011 racing, I sent my racing license Cat 3 upgrade request along with all of my race info to USAC.  Some people say "It's about time".  But I say, "Finally!"