CRCA A race April 3, 2010

This morning’s race was originally scheduled to be a point’s race, which I find to be the most revolting of all the race formats, save for one that involves a downhill section that ends in a pit of night soil. I feel this way of course because I do not have the gift of a sprint that can pass anything except maybe a drunken three-legged deer, but I am a lunatic bike racer, and as such, I feel that anything painful, torturous or mildly fatal can be quite beneficial to my training regime. Fortunately, I was spared any inadvertent fitness benefits to be had from participating in a points race because a last minute change moved the CRCA race format needle (which rest upon a clock that is kept in a golden box in the front left paw of the Cat’s Paw statue) from "points" to "scratch", or in layman’s terms, "a race".

There is a brief week’s time before I take part in the race known as the "Hell of the Accountants", the Tour of the Battenkill. This means that I have to get in as many miles as possible in order to not be dropped like a marble through a toddler at the beginning of the race, an unfortunate situation that would force me to return to a feral state and live off edible pieces of bark or whatever foodstuffs I can acquire by pouncing on unsuspecting lower category racers that cross my path (it’s a thin line between "competition" and "prey"—we are out of the safety of New York City after all). In order to find these extra miles, my plan was to do the 6 laps of the club race and then continue on afterwards for an additional four laps to achieve a Battenkill length workout. But before I could execute my extracurricular circuits, there was the matter of taking part in the race itself.

There was a large group of racers assembled for our morning’s merrymaking, including members of the ever imposing AXA Equitable squad and some of the Foundation stragglers returning from racing at Redlands. It looked to be a serious affair. Our team plan was relatively simple—allow Pavel to win. The early action saw the guys from AXA and Adler treating the race like a rental car—gunning the accelerator and leaving gum in the ashtrays. There were no less than 3,000 attacks, each coming one after another. We took turns shoving ourselves into the moves. I jumped to about 4 or 5 moves and tried my luck on the front (once with Alejandro Guzman—who is a great guy, but not so great when it comes to providing a wind break for a racer as lazy as myself), but things kept coming back together. Things rolled along this way for about four and a half laps, until there was a move off the front that included teammate Justin. I was happy that Justin was off the front, as I didn’t have to do anything and I know that Justin is a fellow who can handle himself in a break and knows his way around Kansas City. The move had a touchy start, but was starting to show promise as more riders jumped across. Pavel bridged across, and that proved to be a satisfying mix for us, as KC Justin would work for Pavel. Many teams had representatives up front, and being tactically satisfied, the rest of us spun our way to the end.

The break rolled to the end, and the racers at the front tried to murder Justin and Pavel, the group stayed together for the sprint and Lisban Quintero of Foundation won, with Pavel fifth. Not a win, but such is life.

Side notes from the day

It seems that I’m not mentioning Greg Olsen enough, and that is a pity. Let me now correct that omission and mention Greg Olsen’s name—and his helmet.

Schmalz Race Report

I like it when teammates do all the work. I will call this a five.

Training postscript

I did managed to get my extra Battenkill miles in also, but I had to do five short loops (turning off before Tavern) due to the swarms of NYRR people overwhelming the park. There were joggers everywhere! I felt just like a New York cyclist.

Today’s head song was "Big Tall Man" by Liz Phair