Especially Late Delaware Race Report

My professor has his face buried in a book, and he is moving his mouth and sounds are coming out and bouncing off of the pages and around the lecture hall. Some of them are entering my ears, but that's where they stop because my brain is refusing to do its job and change the sounds into words. I guess Uniform Commercial Code is never exactly a blast, but once March rolls around and racing starts, sitting in class just seems that much duller by comparison. So, I have decided that I should probably use my class time to try and get my race report over and done today. I'll undoubtedly regret this during finals, but for now it seems like the best course of action.

After getting a late start leaving Boston (thanks to Natan's and my tardiness in gathering the vans, trainers, racks, and miscellany required for a full weekend of BU shreddage) we took our overencumbered jank tank and its new friend the clown van onto the Mass Pike. All was well for a few hours, during which time we engaged in our usual team practices of yodeling and booty dancing while chugging cheap champagne. Unfortunately our shenanigans attracted the attention of a New Jersey State police officer who decided to pull the jank tank over.


After a stern lecture this public servant decided to let us go with a warning, and we rambled on down to our lodging in Maryland, just next to the Delaware border. Our hotel, the Knights Inn, left something to be desired in terms of accommodations, but we were able to cram fourteen people into two rooms somewhat comfortably (BU Cycling travels in style) and get a couple hours sleep before heading out for breakfast on Saturday morning.

Due to a miscalculation in our estimated travel time - instead of 40 mins from the start/finish, our hotel was approximately 7 mins away - we were left with a half hour to piss away. So, we headed over to the Waffle House next to our motel and scarfed a few pounds of waffley goodness.


Having topped up our fat, carb, and salt reserves we again loaded up the caravan for the trek out to the road race staging area.

Things went quick as field after field left for the course. Here are some photos of the pre-race madness:

Natan unloading bikes

Excited about free GU packets...

Lining up for the Men's Intro race

Men's A field heading out

This was a great first road race of the season. In our Intro group, Dave came away with his first career win, and Kehvon finished close behind in fourth. Rob is starting to look pretty damn strong and held it down in 14th. In the D field a bunch of our guys got their feet wet in their first ever bike race. Ian pulled in in 11th place, Matt was in 8th, and Preston finished 6th. After looking strong all race long, Josh had a little run-in with a buddy's wheel near the finish and hit the deck pretty hard. He took a quick trip to the ER, but came back promptly looking only a little the worse for wear.

Chinkle was our only C rider this week, and had a solid pack finish. After going off the front, one by one, of a lazing A field, Natan, Chair and I all held it together for decent finishes, with Natan in 11th, myself in 13th, and Chair in 15th place. All in all, a fairly successful day for BU.

We left the staging area, got lost, ate at Seasons Pizza (big mistake), and got back to the hotel to find a curious hotel manager checking out our lodging methods. Apparently his son had seen us drive by in our overloaded vans and ratted us out, and the manager came to bitch, citing extra charges for extra lodgers, and a statutory maximum of five people per room. (Fire Code? Really?) Fortunately Natan was thinking quick and muttered something about dropping the extra people off at another hotel, etc. etc. The manager seemed to buy that, and to convince the guy we had to pack half the people back into the jank tank, drive out of the lot and around town for ten minutes, and then drive back into the lot with everybody hiding under the seats while Natan waived and smiled at the manager. Being cheap sure is fun.

The next day we made sure to wake up a half hour early again so we could hit up Waffle House. I now love this place and wish there was one in Boston. The TT went quick after that, and I have no photos of it with which to entertain you. All our guys did a great job again. In Intros, Dave slotted in at 5th place, 30 secs behind the leader, Kehvon was 7th, and Rob was 8th. Top tens all around, and Dave is now officially sandbagging and has to race D next weekend or face severe humiliation. In Ds, our guys mixed into the middle of the pack, with Ian and Cass pulling out top-20 finishes, and Chinkle was 29th in Cs. The A field was basically a bunch of people straggling in behing Lipka's dominating TT effort, but we managed to pull out 23rd (Chair), 16th (myself) and 13th (Natan). Natan continues to whip both Chris in me in ITTs and I may have to get all Tonya Harding on his ass soon so I can regain some pride (by dressing up in extravagant, sparkly outfits and weeping profusely while sliding around on the ice, not by breaking his knee caps, of course.)


After the TT we tried to ride to the crit course, got lost again, other teams got lost because of us, then we got lost because them, and then we found the damned place. As you probably know if you're reading this, the sketch factor on at least one of the turns was medium to medium-high (teal on the DOD's color-coded sketchiness alert system), with a fun cross walk in the apex that created a lip which really, really wanted bike tires to part with the asphalt.

Despite the sketch warning, the fields started going off after getting a late start, beginning with the D field where Josh, racing injured after a bad crash on Saturday, still finished 22nd (badass), Preston took 19th in his first crit ever, Ian finished a solid 17th, and Cass ended up in 12th in his first crit. Not too shabby.


In the Intro field, Kehvon was 7th, Dave was 8th, and Rob finished up in 11th. These guys just keep getting stronger.


Since the women's A field consisted of only four riders this weekend (boo), the powers that be decided to merge the A field with the Bs. This exciting race went on for a total of about five minutes before the motoref crashed in the aforementioned turn of death (sketchiness alert level teal):


The race was halted as they loaded the ref into the ambulance, then resumed using a new tip-proof pace car. In this real race, Katrina finished up in 13th place, a great job especially considering last week she was racing Intros, and this week she was up against four women from the A field.

In Cs, Chinkle had another solid pack finish, and in As Chair finished up in 24th, Natan was 14th (after crashing in the turn-o-doom and still hucking himself back into the field one lap later):


and I ended up in 10th after hanging on to a group composed almost entirely of very strong and very organized UVM riders and then botching the field sprint:


It was a sketchy weekend but a damn fun one, and it's now almost time to head out for Philly, which is definitely one of my favorite weekends. I am PUMPED for the circuit race.