Seriously, it's amazing when a race weekend is close to Boston. We met up at 808 Comm. at 6:00 and made the drive out to Hanover, NH in no time. I think this was the latest we've ever left for a weekend, and the earliest we've ever arrived. Sweet. After hitting up Everything But Anchovies (where flimsy silverware engaged in an epic battle with the world's toughest chicken parmesan and we discovered that Kaybles is some sort of idiot savant when it comes to Trivial Pursuit) we headed to our hotel and watched some baseball until it was time for bed.
The next morning we woke up to the greatest continental breakfast ever:
Oh yeah, that's a fresh, hot waffle. And they had one for each of us, so we didn't even have to share! We ate, headed out to the TTT and picked up a few points, and then it was time for some crit action. The weather held up for most of the day (but see, e.g., Shit Weather, infra p. 3), and the BU D squad started us off. Here they are getting some pre-race pointers from Kaybles:
They then proceeded to shred. In a totaly strung-out field, Preston kept it full gas until the end and finished in fourth place (plus some prime points), and Dave Garged his way to a pretty sweet 13th place.
Once again, the most exciting race of the day came from the Intro field, where Rob, some guy dressed as a purple cow, and a rapidly improving Joe Kopena launched a daring attack with four to go.
Rob appeared to be doing most of the work in the lead group, but with one to go he forced the purple cow to pull for a while and used his considerable race smarts to take advantage of the cow's leadout and bring home a big W for BU. Note the teammates freaking out in the background:
Watch out for this guy to be wrecking the D field pretty soon. Seriously. Be afraid.
In the C field, Kyle decided to show of his new ink before commencing domination:
He relished the "oohs" and "ahhs" for a while, and then he and Cass set out. They did some pedaling, and some turning (a lot of turning, actually), and at some point they did this:
They managed to avoid crashing into a lake and finished up mid-pack.
It was then time for the A race, and wouldn't ya know it, the rain that had been threatening all day decided to come down. This made for a super cold and very dirty race, involving lots of spitting, eye-wiping, and shaking. Here we are trying not to freeze to death:
The course was super fun, and Natan finished up in 8th, while I was a somewhat disappointing 14th. I then freaked out on Rob for no good reason, took my jacket, and commenced a 20 minute session of violent shivering in front of the car's heat vents, while Natan posed for some pretty awesome dirt-beard photos:
We went to dinner where Garg and Cass consumed a large pizza covered in approximately 3.6 pigs worth of pig, and then went back to the hotel and did laundry, watched some baseball, and went to bed.
The next day we repeated breakfast and headed out to the road race course which had been completely blanketed in mist:
Awesome, but it burned off real quick and we were forced to race with some actual visibility, which totally took all the fun out of it. Here are the D guys staging:
This was their longest road race ever, and they both seemed pretty pumped. Garg was especially pumped, as he had brought a couple of leftover slices of coronary lover's pizza from the night before, and promised to eat them mid-race if he was dropped. They started out strong, and Preston was in good position until the final climb when he dropped a chain and finished up in 25th. Garg did indeed have an opportunity to eat his pizza, but stuck in there until the finish and still stomped a good portion of the field.
In the Intro field, Rob wasn't all that confident about his odds in the road race. That's because Rob doesn't fancy himself much of a climber. However, Rob proved himself wrong by finishing up in 6th place, just outside of points. He then scurried off to join Joe Kopena for some additional touring of the road course.
Cass was our only C rider for the day, since Kaybles had to get back to Boston to have his tattoo removed. This guy is one hell of a strong climber, but due to undisclosed problems he didn't have the opportunity to unleash his vertical fury and ended up with a strong pack finish.
I don't have any pics of the A race, but here is a random feed zone photo:
I'm pretty sure that's the C field, but I could be wrong.
Anyways, the A race started out slow. Real slow. Steven Pingree from Army headed off the front early, and we all sat up and waived bon voyage. He was followed shortly thereafter by a UConn rider and a rider from Connecticut College. Again, the field was content to let 'em go, and after a lap or two a UVM guy meandered off the front solo.
Enjoying the sunny day, we rolled along in cruise control and although Natan and I put in some solid attacks, nobody else appeared to want to work. Nobody wanted to work, that is, until two laps to go, when Derek from Army and a rider from UVM attacked right after the feed zone. I bridged up to these two, and we were joined shortly thereafter by a Cornell rider. We did a lot of work that lap to get the gap up, eventually caught the UConn and Connecticut College riders and the solo UVM rider, dropped both UVM riders, and headed into the final climb as a group of three. After fighting it out on the climb, I ended up with a third place finish behind Pingree (who we never did catch) and Derek. Natan, who had been aiding the UVM/Army blocking effort back in the main field, hammered it up the last climb and finished in 9th.
All in all, this was a great weekend for BU Cycling. We were 6th in the weekend omnium, and we picked up some solid points toward qualifying for the rapidly approaching Nationals weekend. Look out for the red and white at X-Pot!
