I had a feeling that Saturday’s Robert Ollivierra Memorial Race at Prospect Park was going to be a bit of a crap shoot. Firstly, it was a full field for a 3/4ths race, which means that it would be hard to shake the many 3/4ths who would like the race to come down to a filthily furious field sprint (that sentence is more fun if you reread out loud using a Sylvester voice). Secondly, 3/4ths generally don’t like to break away. They like to pursue people like they see on TV in the Tour de France and other foreign races, but they don’t attack to get up to the break in the front. They chug along with the entire field in tow, as if they are carrying Mark Cavendish to the finish (sadly, almost all of them do not have a Mark Cavendish type on their teams). But I am not saying this because I disapprove of this manner of racing, I am only stating what I have observed. Knowing how a field will behave is quite an advantage really, as you can use their predictability against them.

If I think a race will be negative, I find that attacking early in the race is a good idea. Many times you can catch the pursuers unawares, and once you’ve established a gap with a good working group of fellows, the pursuers give up and downgrade their goals to "placing in the field sprint". I tried attacking early on Saturday. I jumped as we crested the hill on the first lap, and managed to take poor Brian F of Sixcycles with me. A two person breakaway on an early move is not normally enough manpower to stay away for the entire race, but you know, it is a bike race, so we pedaled quickly for about a half lap. Looking back on my Strava data, I discovered that we averaged about 28 miles per hour on our effort(and I know, a good portion of that was downhill), but that was a pretty good effort—which was chased down.

In many races in New York, I play the role of the canary in the coal mine. In a pro1/2/3 race, this little birdy drops dead after a few efforts off the front, and therefore must be very careful. But in a 3/4ths race, this bird can take off many different times, which I did. I tried countering the prime sprints (I enjoy punishing the greedy). I watched the front on the climbs, and I taunted the masters field when our 3/4ths field caught them (I enjoy taunting the elderly). I did this for two reasons, um, bike racing, and I if I want to get away or have hope in a field sprint, I cannot have a fresh field tootling around Prospect Park all day.

With about 3 to go, a group of six of us got together in what seemed to be a very promising move off the front. But with the speed of the racing behind, we needed to work together as efficiently as possible. We worked like an ipad that was assembled in the dark, so I bid the break adieu, and floated my canary behind back to the field for the inevitable field sprint finish. Field sprint in 3/4ths races tend to be mayhem, as many teams do not or can not make the finish fast enough to keep the front of the race from being big clumps of elbows, aspirations and chaos. I am not a good clump sprinter, I need about a two mile leadout to be successful, as it thins the herd and I can be choosy about where I jump from. In a clump finish I, along with everyone else, am at the mercy of good fortune. I had put myself into a position that normally would have been a good one, but as I rose to unleash the fury of my sprint (don’t laugh), I had to come around an overly optimistic fellow who, for some reason, decided it would be best and safest to end his day by exploding backwards through the center of a sprinting pack.

I braked and lost momentum going around Mr Obstacle, and that was that. The sprint happened in front of me, but the winners were two or three bike lengths away—which is about a quarter mile’s gap in sprint distance. And saddest of all, I was three places behind Mihael, my life coach, which gives him a three to one lead in our season long series.