Well, its finally here, I’ve reached the end of foreseeable racing in 2008.  It has been a long season filled with great new experiences and valuable lessons. 

A year ago at this time, I was an ex-collegiate rower clinging to the hope of a continued competitive outlet in the form of sculling.  I trained every day before class, riding my bike up to the Peter Jay Sharp Boathouse to meet my training partner, Alyosha at 6am for our morning row.

A year ago, bike racing was still just a far-off fantasy to me.  I have always enjoyed bikes obsessively, but never turned a pedal in anger during a race.  I was content to watch from the outside, riding my bike alone and hiding my secret shame that I was not a “real” racer.  I was too big, too clueless and too busy to figure out racing, so I thought.  As we enter this time of year when we are encouraged to reflect and give thanks, I have a lot to be appreciative for.  After all, In less than a year, many unexpected opportunities have been presented to me, and I am truly grateful. Before I go all mushy, though, let me get back to the final weekend.  The real reason I write, after all, is to try sum up the experience of racing from the perspective of a wide-eyed newbie.

Traditionally, the Prensky family converges on the ancestral homeland of Chevy Chase, MD for the eating of Turkey and the giving of thanks.  I boarded a Vamoose bus, along with the several hundred other DC-bound New Yorkers and headed out from Penn Station.  Amazingly, despite getting stuck in NJTP traffic for what seemed like an eternity, we still made it to Bethesda in a reasonable five hours.  Most shockingly, the bus traversed the Beltway from Baltimore to Connecticut Avenue in Chevy Chase in about 30 minutes (it normally takes at least 45).  Let me just say that perhaps bike racers could learn a thing or two about speed from these drivers.

Once at my Grandparents’ house, before we began the feast, there was another age-old ritual to be completed.  Just as in every year since I’ve been Bar Mitzvah’d into adulthood, I was given a ladder, a broom and a screwdriver to clean the gutters and replace the squirrel-damaged gutter guards.

Once that was completed, we could move on to the newer tradition of making Colin carve the turkey and invoking predictable jokes about how well I was doing because I am in medical school and thus will be a surgeon and yadda, yadda, yadda.  I must say, though, that I did a pretty decent job this year.  I think it has more to do with my diet consisting largely of Peruvian chicken.  Its like practicing on a scale model of a turkey after all.  Dinner was fantastic…Thanks, Grandma, Mom, Aunt Gail, you’ve done it again!

Ok, I promised racing and I’m still talking about the extracurriculars, I’m sorry.  After Thanksgiving dinner, I returned to Camp Hill, PA with my parents.  This meant that when we headed back to New York on Saturday, we would be driving within a mile or two from the PA state cyclocross championships.  The urge for spontaneous, unplanned racing proved too strong and my dad and I took the minor detour off the highway in Allentown to check it out.  When I arrived, I saw my top nemesis (according to crossresults.com), Bryon Kremer.  A mountain biking accident had forced him to take a break from beating me in every race and pick up a camera.  Its always a bummer to see a friend forced to the sidelines with injury, but he got some nice shots, and his injuries are fortunately only a minor setback.  It was his first season racing cross as well, and from what everybody saw this year, Bryon is going to be a huge force in the MAC next year.

Bryon’s choice of a high contrast black and white effect made me glad that I wore the vintage Vuarnet shades.

Borrowing my dad’s bike and shoes, I lined up with the Cat2,3,4 field.  After a strong start, I had a large gap for the first lap.  I wanted to create a selection right away, and as expected a couple of the fast guys quickly formed a chase and dropped the rest of the field.  Zach Adams, who has been on fire recently, made a great move to bridge up with Matt Spohn.  Towards the end of the second lap, they were closing, so I sat up and let Zach take the lead.  He seemed content to set the pace for the majority of the race.  He was clearly strong and motivated.  Matt, Zach and I rode steady and gradually distanced ourselves to a comfortable lead where we settled in.  The course was fairly straightforward.  It was dry, so no mud complicated the grassy course’s off-cambers and there was only one forced dismount.  With two laps to go, Matt bobbled a bit and was gapped.  Clearly, he was in difficulty from his earlier efforts to join the front and he could never catch back on.  Zach and I tactically rolled around the final lap.  He peppered the last lap with little bursts of accelerations that I ached to match.  Ultimately, he managed to put a little distance on me after the barriers, with about 50 yards before a right turn onto the uphill finishing stretch of pavement.  I couldn’t quite get myself up to him in time to win in a sprint.  Did I wuss out?  Probably, but I was happy to finish well in a spur of the moment race.  Besides, Zach has been racing very well these past few weeks, and deserved the win.  Also, Zach hails from Carlisle, PA and Matt is from York.  Between Zach, Matt and Myself, it was an all Mid-Penn podium.  I can’t complain about that.  After waiting around to pick up my prize, it was back on the road to New York City,  Staten Island awaited.

Sunday morning, my father and I awoke to frigid temperatures and sleet.  It only seemed to get worse as we hit the road and made our way to final borough that I had yet to visit since moving here.  I called CJ from the car, and he informed me that conditions were even winterier where he was standing (putting the final touches to the course-set).  I began prepping myself for the mental anguish of slip-sliding in half-frozen mud.  I also had to psych my dad up.  His bike was in the car, he had clothing, shoes, a helmet and the cash for day-of registration.  The only thing he needed was a son who wouldn’t let him back down.

We showed up to the parking lot as things were already getting underway.  Fittingly, the race course shared the park with a monument to the Battle of the Bulge.  It was cold, it was wet and people didn’t seem particularly excited.  I was able, however, to talk my dad into suiting up and taking his bike out of the car for a little ride.  Eventually, he even capitulated to signing up to race in the B-masters field.  He raced, he finished and he smiled a bunch.  Much later, he would call me from the car ride back to PA.  He was stuck in traffic and still full of penetrating damp coldness.  He wouldn’t get a shower until seven hours after his race!  That’s ‘core!

The weather made the pre race routine downright painful.  It was uncomfortable to even begin to think about changing into proper clothing.  I layered myself under some raingear and took a look at the course.  I was happy to see Matt Spohn, my fellow Central Pennsylvanian and race companion from the previous day.  We went about “warming up” by spinning around Jed and CJ’s course set.  It was nice.  The course utilized much of the available terrain, with a mix of grass, mud and sand.  There was one exception to the otherwise free flowing rhythm of the course.  A failed attempt at the famed “spiral of death” invented some years ago for the Wissahickon race, left a muddled birdsnest of tape following the barriers.  Sorry Tony, I still won’t buy it, that wasn’t a real spiral!  My favorite sections of the course included a fun little rollercoaster around the park’s Monument and a grass stretch that overlooked the Atlantic surf.

Claudette got one of the coolest pictures anybody has ever taken of me ‘riding’ my bike.

So, we lined up for the Cat2/3/4 race.  I guess I didn’t get the promised CRCA call-up since I was flying the TOGA colors.  I sat on the second row.  The start was too short to really get a good run at taking the holeshot, so I started as fast as I could and waited until the first grass straightaw

ay to move up.  While sprinting up the side, a rut in the mud knocked me several feet to the right and I gave the guy (winner of the holeshot) a nice hip check with all my 185 pounds.  Fortunately, it was fellow big dude, and creator of the “Glomerulus of Confusion,” Tony Slokar.  He gave me a sarcastic scolding, and we rolled on.  Soon, I moved away from the group.  A little later I was joined by Matt Spohn.  We worked together to build a lead, as was our tactic going into the race.  I was a bit faster running through the sand, which put me in the lead going into the woods.  I preferred the front there, because it gave me the ability to chose my line and ride the run-up.  The ability to stay on the bike up the steep, rooty, pitch gave us a major advantage coming back onto the grass sections of the course.  Matt took the lead for a few stretches, but the mud off of his back tire made the draft less pleasant than if it were dry, so I spent as much time as possible on the front.  On the last lap, Matt took the lead after the beach.  We headed into the woods and hit lapped traffic on the run-up.  This congestion forced us to dismount for the first time in the race.  I was able to squeeze by him while on foot, scrambling up the incline.  We hit the final few turns and I hit the gas.  He wasn’t able to match my acceleration and I cruised in with my final win.  Luckily, I barely avoided the embarrassment of crashing into a hole on the finish line while celebrating with raised arms and let out a goofy “WHOAAHOAH!” and laughed as I grabbed my bars and finished with a more restrained posture.

 

I intended to line up for the elite race, as well, but after two hours of warming up in a car, with two down jackets, I was still shivering.  Ultimately, I put my bike in the pit for team mates and cheered them on.  Most people had become fed up with the worsening weather by the time the elite race went off, so I was one of the very few left to bolster the spirits of those hearty few who were racing.

StatenCX, round one was a success and the many photos on NYvelocity say it all.  It was especially nice to see so many familiar faces from the road season trying out cyclocross for the first time and supporting CJ and Jed’s vision for the future of cycling in NYC.  Hopefully the city and CRCA, Kissena and the rest of New York’s cycling community will continue to support such a welcome development.  Thanks for everybody who came out.  I will leave it to CJ to finally write his wrap-up blog (which appears to be even more overdue than mine) and give the full perspective on what those guys accomplished.  As for me, I am very pleased with my season.  I met my goals of having fun, learning a new sport and gaining some skills.  I also accomplished some things that I had not expected, namely to earn a Cat2 in something my first year out, and in ‘Cross, no less.  This inevitably brings me back to my gushy, emotional stream I was hinting at earlier.  When originally conceiving this piece in the context of Thanksgiving, I had the incredibly clichéd desire to express my deep appreciation for everybody who has made this season so great.  So here goes…and I mean this stuff sincerely, so tread lightly when making sarcastic comments about this little epilogue.

Thanks to the Sanches-Metro (stay tuned for the name change next year) guys for getting me started way back in January.  I can’t say enough about how much the generosity and benevolence of the team, especially from Bob Guatelli and Vinny Vicari, means to me.  I also owe a huge debt of gratitude to the TOGA guys for showing me the ropes and introducing me to the quirky world of Cyclocross.  Without Paul’s pit bike, I would not have had a sled to race on.  Also, thanks to CJ, Jed, Jon Cuttler, for making the fantasy of a Staten Island race a reality.  I also need to shout out to Tony Slokar, who makes a mean roast (so I’ve heard).  Thanks for reading, and watch out for those little metal thingies on the GW bridge—flat city!