By Justin Reid

Pictures here and here.

The Bicycle Workshop team have a great little disclaimer at the bottom of their race reports which I will blatantly steal for the duration of this report (which will be, not unnaturally slightly VisitBritain biased) – hope they don’t mind !

“Disclaimer: We wrote it. That means we own it. It also means what you read here might not be what you remember—heck, half the time, we barely remember what happened. So while your clarifications are welcome, arguments are not. If you disagree, go write your own race report.”

@##=#<1,L>@##=#Well with that out of the way – Mengoni Men’s 3’s – usual drill – 6am start, 6 laps, all the New York and a few of the more regional teams represented. In the days leading up to the race we’d pretty much decided this was our race to lose (is that the right expression?) – the best Cat 3 sprinter around, 3 of the fastest Time Trialers in the race…..and errr…me – hey you never know someone might have needed a wheel. If we could keep the irrepressible Merril Lynch attack duo of Ken Harris and Jon Orcutt in check, as well as keep an eye on the strong Connecticut team of Fastar, then all things being equal we should be able to leave Ricky in his sweet spot. From there thankfully more often than not he delivers the goods. Anyway key phrase there is “all things being equal” – large open races in Central Park have a nasty habit and history of turning the air blue with the clatter and crash of bikes and riders hitting tarmac, and not unnaturally the usual litany of swear words that accompany such matters. So keep the race in check, keep Ricky upright, give him a leadout and we’re golden – ah the delights of having a sprinter on your team, it really does simplify team tactics.

Anyway the (metaphoric) flag drops to signal the start of the race – and what ? no attack from Ken Harris – that’s odd. Half a lap later and oops there we go, normality is restored and Ken launches the first of his many attacks. This one comes back pretty quickly. Seems like people have learnt from last year and now whenever Ken makes a move there are at least 5 riders on him immediately like white on rice – or white on rye whatever the expression is (in Britain we’d say flies on shit but that would be derogatory to Ken and besides this is a family publication). The next couple of laps pass by with pretty much the same drill – Ken or someone would attack and George, Roger or Ted would either bring it back or monitor it closely enough to know that it would come back off its own accord. At this point I made a mental note that this race was going to be a sprint finish – immediate reaction “oh no they can be dicey” replaced 2 seconds later by “oh yes – we’ve got Ricky” – again the delights of having a sprinter.

@##=#<2,r>@##=#A lap later and the “groove” on Horse Shit Alley claims its first 2 victims. They weren’t CRCA riders and I didn’t recognize them from Prospect either so really you’ve to feel sorry for them – not many parks have a 100 meters long, 4 inch deep “groove” channel. Still down they went, “crash” went their bikes – blue the air did turn – but onward we pedaled. Top of Cats Paw and there was another crash. If you could forgive the out of towners from the previous crash for not knowing about the groove, I’ve absolutely no idea what was going through the mind of the poor rider in the next incident. One-minute riding middle of the pack – next minute he appeared to just ride headfirst into the bushes then smacking into the pavement. Hope you’re OK Mr. CTS Man. Stern reminder that as well as this race is going for us Ricky just has to be behind the wrong person at the wrong time and game over. So Georgie-boy does the smart thing and calls for a long, looonnggg steady lead out to ensure Ricky is kept out of harms way. Long leadout? I normally think – ok go from top of Horse Poop Alley rather than _ way along Summer Stage – nope in this case we’re talking from practically the end of Engineer’s Gate, sweeping up the remnants of another break – then alllllll the way to the finish – nearly 9 kilometers away. I’m telling you these 3 can Time Trial. Ray Alba and Marco “the lens” Quezada would each take turns at suicide flyers off the front and both looked good but the VisitBritain train just kept rolling, bringing the flyers back till we got to the top of Horse Poop Alley and it was down to just Roger Friedman with Ricky on his wheel. Another body would have been juicy but from goodness knows where Roger was able to drive it all the way along the top, down into the boathouse then actually kicked and kept Ricky’s momentum going for him to swing around and well….no sense trying to do justice to his sprint – simply have a look at the photographs – amazing.

After the race it was all smiles, no one on the team could be happier to see Ricky – the epitome of a humble and appreciative teammate. First words out of his mouth after the race? Not – “man I crushed ‘em”, or “I won by 5 bike lengths” – simply “ I couldn’t have done it without you guys” – classy guy, fun morning.

Hmmmm, chase ’em down, lead ‘im out, write the report….nap time!!