Rutger's Race Report

So the first weekend of the ECCC road season is in the books. I guess overall my impression is that we are in good shape as a team considering we took second in the omnium while still missing the majority of our stud A guys(Rodney Santiago, Jim Camut, Clayton Barrows all had prior obligations). The freshmen and new members of the team really helped carry the weekend with sophomore D rider Jordan Thompson picking up his first win in his first race in the Crit and then a third the next day in the circuit race. Freshman wonderchild, Sean Melcher, pronounced mel-Ker, Held his own in the A crit Saturday after blowing some spokes out of his rear wheel in the opening laps and having to get back into the pack, then taking down the field sprint behind a break and placing 5th in the road race Sunday. In my races it was a little bit of a different story. Those of us racing B's seem to not be on the same page tactically sometimes which in a field of 70 riders leads to big problems. I will be the first to admit I am not in great or maybe even good shape as of right now so the majority of both days for me was playing the whooping boy and closing down breaks and trying to keep our more fit kids fresh for the finish. The crit Saturday was pretty crazy as 65 riders were in the field. The course was pretty bland except for the fact that half of it was on the equivalent of a cart path that was about 4 bike lengths wide and a killer 120 degree off camber turn at the bottom of the course about 250m from the finish line. Granted it is early in the year so no one is exactly super sharp on their handling skills but that was as scared as I have been in a group in a long time. Missed a big crash that split the field and took down a bunch of kids by about a foot. I ended up finishing about mid-pack not really sprinting but just trying to save my skin for the next day. Sunday was the "circuit race" which is really just an over glorified crit. Again it was fast from the gun this time with 71 riders in the field. The best part being that they used the yellow line rule which makes moving through a field that size almost impossible. Again I spent my time at or near the front working for our two bigger boys, Ryan Smolko, and John Gleaves. The highlight of the race had to be when Ryan took a quick flyer up the road to see if he could initiate a break and I was riding on front just setting tempo and watching him ride away, this one rider from Bucknell pulls up alongside me and I look at him with this ear to ear grin just matching his pace with the field in tow. He then has a little tweak out and asks what the hell I am smiling about to which I just kind of nod up the road and mention that he might want to do something about it. This was quickly followed by a host of low and lower lights. First Ryan sees nothing is really happening so he starts to drift back to the field. So I let some other kids pull through seeing how there is no reason to try to stop my teammate coming back to the field if he is sitting up. The problem is another teammate of mine who I hadn't seen all race attacks over the top of the field bridging the 10sec gap and dragging 2 UVM and a Columbia rider with him. As soon as he gets to Ryan he gets on his wheel because he is shot, the three riders who just got the free ride then go over the top of both of them neither responds, I am not swamped in the field and 3 guys are up the road who really shouldn't be and we have no-one chasing. Eventually it comes back together but we need to iron the group thinking out amongst us...Later in the race a rider from UVM forgets how to corner and is left foot comes out going around a 90 degree right hand bend about 10 wheels from the front. The great part about it was I was 11th. He goes from inside curb to the outside grass taking me and John who was on my wheel with him. None of us actually went down but I had all sorts of bad thoughts running through my head as I saw it happen. Now I was just at the wrong end of the field with our sprinter...mmmm more work. Eventually I finally explode and leave everyone to figure it out in the sprint, that didn't work out so well as our top finisher comes across in 20 something. This up coming weekend is in Philadelphia hopefully we get something right and pick up our end of the bargain on our team.