I was a late sign up for the Dave Jordan Classic on Sunday morning, because I am a non-sprinter—and from a strictly financial standpoint—my participation in the race is an easy way to take $50 and exchange it for a morning of pointless panting and moments of abject terror. But there was nothing else going on over the weekend, and I had teammates who wanted to race, so I signed up for the cat three race. We also were hoping to have our sprinter Josh sign up because 85% of park races end in a field sprint, but he was waiting to see what the weather would be like, because there was chance of rain, and track racers are like statues made of sugar—they melt into a river of uselessness in the rain. Josh ended up waiting too long, and our field sold out. Which meant two things: our sprinter would be contesting the race in his cat PJs at home, and there would be 100 cat threes striving for glory in the restrictive confines of Central Park.

That meant that Team Rockstar had a team of four non-sprinters for a race that was, due to the inclusion of $150 primes on every lap, a seven lap points race—the filthiest of all race formats. Assembled for the race were teammates Chas, Aaron, Erik and Paul. Due to our dearth of sprinters (again, to be clear, I’m blaming Josh here) our plan was to attack late in the race if the speed was high, because waiting for a sprint would be pointless. Of course, if there were moments of opportunity during the race, we would take them—but getting away would be our best chance at success.

We lined up, pushed off and everybody soon went bonkers. Our first lap (according to Strava) was a 13:19 at about 27.6 MPH. This was pretty fast, and if that sort of speed kept up, our plan for a late attack looked pretty good. The second lap was a 13:39 and things were still looking good. The greedy amongst us were contesting the primes, and that kept the speed relatively high. But soon after, our laps started hitting the 14 minute range, which meant there wasn’t as much steady pressure on the race. That meant that our plan was going out the window, so we improvised and started attacking the race when things slowed—usually on the rollers after Harlem Hill. There must’ve still been a lot of greed left in the race, as every break attempt was quickly hauled back before the prime sprints (again, points races are revolting).

We came down to two laps to go, and were down a man due to Paul’s flat tire. we concocted a loose plan to attack after pushing up Harlem Hill with two laps to go, but we couldn’t coordinate, because moving about the pack in a field of one-freaking-hundred is not easy. So I graciously volunteered to contest the sprint—surely to be a near death experience, but you know, bike racing. Just before we hit the line for the bell lap, I heard the sure sounds of a pileup, as someone found the pavement in the pinch just before the cat on Cat’s Paw Hill. We survivors preceded to do what bike racers do when there’s a crash, and put the hammer down. Luckily all three of us on Rockstar made it through unscathed. I told Aaron, Chas and Erik that I would need the pack lined out from carousel to the finish to have any hope of a decent placing, as I normally need a nice one mile-ish leadout. The plans were then set, and we made our way to the finish.

The battle for position on the last lap lasted from harlem Hill until the finish. There were surges, stoppages, swerving, cursing, laughing—like a really spirited book club meeting. I did my best to maintain position in the front block of the race, which by the time we got to Tavern, was really a large block of sprint hopefuls. This block unfortunately didn’t include anyone willing to stretch the race out because, as I mentioned before, it’s really difficult to move around a pack of one-freaking-hundred riders. My teammates were not able to negotiate their way to the front of our bike equivalent of the LIE on Memorial Day, so I was left to freelance my way to the finish. I then turned off my brain (too much thinking in a sprint is not wise) to roll the dice in the field sprint. The lycra LIE sped it’s way to the finish, and I was poorly positioned for a top five finish, and the sort of moves it would’ve taken to get to a better position would’ve been too risky/illegal/ill-advised-for-skin-keeping to chance, so I just maintained my spot in the race, and jumped near the finish to not get rear-ended. I screeched so encouragement at my fellow Jersey-ite Evan, who had foolishly followed me to 20th place, and in doing so, managed to elevate him to 16th place (which I will now take all the credit for), I finished 22nd, 12 places after the “who give a crap” position”.

A side note on the DQ of the race winner 

Immediately after the race, there was a Black Friday-esque rush on the officials table to DQ the rider who won the race. This is because he spent so much time in the joggers lane during the race that I’m pretty sure he got shin splints. It may have been disappointing to have a win taken away, but it’s also pretty easy to win a race when you move up illegally on a pack that’s following the rules. I would say that I feel bad about this, but I don’t, because I’m not a particularly good person.