Oh helllllllllllls yeah.

Well done!
I think someone's got some natural talent here.

Way to go Sebastian! Gotta get you upgraded to 4s so you can collect the $ bills!

Congratulations Sebastian!

thanks all!

Race 1
Didn't get much of a warmup (~30 seconds) thanks to forgetting to set an alarm, so I didn't have super high expectations when I lined up at 7 am. But it was warm enough to not warm leg or knee warmers, so I was excited nonetheless. It was pretty chill at the front - two CRCA To Be Determined guys were setting the pace and generally keeping things together, and I was for the most part staying on their wheels. 

Max and I put in some little attacks, but the field was eager to chase things down, so nothing stuck, leading to a field sprint. My strategy was more or less to go when one of the aforementioned TBD guys (Ted I believe) went, as he podiumed at Grant's last weekend and seemed stronger than pretty much everyone else. Managed to get in good position and tried to hold onto him and the eventual winner, but got stuck somewhere in between them and the rest of the field. No clue how close it was, but if the finish had been 10 meters further out I don't think I would have had nearly as good a result. 

Really happy with third! I went into the weekend with a goal to get on a podium so it was nice to get that out of the way quickly. 

Race 2
Field was noticeably slower here, so much so that we were passed by the masters about halfway through. 

I don't know if I didn't notice it in the first race or what, but the field was also suuuuper sketchy in the second race. There were only a handful of people I wanted to be as far away from as possible, but they made enough of an impression that I tried to stay in the top 4 wheels for most of the race. Traded long-ish pulls with a few others to keep it fast in the last 3 laps, couldn't hold onto wheels in the sprint, and sat up somewhere in the middle of the field.

Another good day of racing! I have been eating and laying on the couch all day hoping to get as recovered as possible for L&C tomorrow, would be fun to go for the win if I have the legs.

Congrats, Sebastian. I had fun staying active at the front attacking the field with you during the races. Sebastian mentioned the TBD guys--they followed me into couple moves in Race 1. In one I attacked out of the corner and had Ted on my wheel shouting "go, go, go" and we dug hard but got caught. Another move included the other TBD guy, Clark, and a third guy who seemed committed. I started it with an attack on the curvy back-half of the course. We pried open a little gap that for a glorious moment I thought might stick, but really only lasted a quarter of a lap. The bunch didn't want to let much go. It was anxious racing.

Which brings me to the real notable detail from my Saturday racing: collisions. Not crashes--though there were plenty of those--but I managed to stay upright. Both of my collisions happened in the finishing sprints. In Race 1, I was in the middle of the pack heading into the chicanes before the line. I was determined to make the best of my bad positioning, though. It wasn't to be. I heard a sickening crunch and suddenly the falling riders were right on top of me, sweeping over from left to right. My knee sang out in pain as I lost all my momentum. Stayed upright though, and pedaled gingerly through the finish. I found out later that the impact had busted a spoke on my rear wheel and gave me a pretty good gash on my knee. But if the worst to come from a crash is a wobbly wheel and a bloody leg warmer, that's not so bad. 

The collision in the second race is the one that I'm more bitter about. I had great positioning coming out of the corner, right on the wheel of a guy I know is a good handler and has a strong finish. I was holding my position as we floated between fifth and twelfth wheel. One Dave Jordan rider was on the front leading out his teammate and when he decided he'd given it all he had he sat straight up and floated back through the middle of the group, instead of peeling off the side! I moved to go around him on the right, but a Cuevas rider drifts back toward the middle of the road and our wheels touch. Bumping shoulders with the guy who took this video probably helped keep me from hitting the pavement. Take a look here (or start at 43:30 if you watch the embedded version below). Sprint ruined, positioning wasted. The guy whose wheel I was on ended up finishing fifth.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JJquJGm1i3Q

To anyone that is racing on Saturday: after we race, I was thinking of doing a NJ bike ride. I used to live in Millburrn and I know the routes very well.

@MaxThorn That turkey to your right chopped you bad. As the saying goes: out of sight, out of mind—yelling at him might have bought you some room. No shame in letting people know "on your left" in my book. 

@JohnMalcolmson Totally agree. I wish that had been my reaction in the moment, but it happened so fast. After the race I found him and set him straight though. I would have rather said something as it was happening and saved my race, but by bringing it up afterwards I'll have maybe, hopefully, spared some other unfortunate soul the same fate. 

@MaxThorn that was wicked close. too bad he won't see the video footage. he was moving around a lot. how did he react to your feedback?

Branchbrook is canceled tomorrow  :'(

Once again, we have to cancel this weekend's race. The Essex County Parks Department cancelled the race scheduled for Saturday April 1st due to concerns about the weather and flooding in the park.

We are going to issue refunds to everyone registered for tomorrow's event. We are not going to move any registrations to the Cherry Blossom race for next week so please make sure to head over there and register if you plan on racing.

We will discuss the Spring Series point standings and make an announcement about the final race which will now be next weeks Cherry Blossom Challenge.

Man, that's 3 of their races cancelled due to weather.  That's crazy.

Hey, is anyone racing Cherry Blossom Challenge? I would like to this race but right now I don't know how to go there.

UlrikeGlaser said:

Hey, is anyone racing Cherry Blossom Challenge? I would like to this race but right now I don't know how to go there.

Ulrike,
     It's quite easy.  You take a NJ Transit train from Penn Station New York in Midtown to Penn Station Newark.  then you ride three miles or so and you're there.

Go to NJTransit.com to get train times.  You can purchase a ticket in advance, at the station, or on the platform.  The train ride can be as short as 20 minutes.

Then use a mapping program to get from the train station to the race start.  The promoters have an address on their Bikereg page and you can use that to link to Google maps.  

My suggestion is to work backwards.  you want to get to the start 30 minutes before your race.  Figure out how long the ride will take from the station, and what time you need to be at the Newark Station, and that will inform you as to what time you need to leave Penn Station.

Penn Station can be confusing if you haven't been there before.  Allow for extra time there.  You go down one level from the street to find the station, and then the tracks are a level below that.  

UlrikeGlaser said:

Hey, is anyone racing Cherry Blossom Challenge? I would like to this race but right now I don't know how to go there.

@UlrikeGlaser if u want a ride, lmk. I'm driving out from BK to the Holland Tunnel. Can pick u up if not too far out of the way. But my race is an hour earlier than yours...leaving my place at 5:30ish. 

Douglas Plantada who rides w PPRNYC won the CAT 4/5 race today. Pretty awesome performance. Breakaway on lap 2 and no one caught him. 

overheard after the race: Douglas was telling a teammate he'd been up since 4am. made the trek out here from deep brooklyn using mass transit. spent his last $45 on race registration. was a quarter short to get on the PATH this morning and had to ask people (read: pan handle) at 5am to get a quarter.

after the race, he was asking around to see if anyone could give him a ride back to the city so he could get to work on time. I think he is a bike messenger.

anyway, I thought that was pretty fucking rad / straight gangster. 

in other news, I took 10th. had I waited to sprint a bit longer I may have placed. ran out of gas and was caught.

v happy considering I almost said fuck it this morning (it's also my 1st top ten finish). it was cold and my tempurpedic was oh so cozy (getting sleepy as I think about it). I made it just in time. 10 min before race start. quickly registered, took a quick piss and then we were off. took me a while to get warmed up and I got sorta momentarily got dropped coming around the start / finish line a couple times. the wind was ripping pretty hard and I didn't want to over exert myself too much. also knew the pack would slow down anyway. 

for the most part, it was a well controlled race / decent group of riders. I didn't notice any near misses, theee weren't any crashes, etc

I didn't use my garmin at all this race. I think that worked well. 

Doug is suuuper strong, if anyone watched my Grant's video he's the guy whose wheel I held onto for the sprint. He's got two other teammates that have been getting results early in the season too (I believe they won the most recent 5 and 4 races at PP). 

@UlrikeGlaser took second. wow! #bigups #respect

Women open was a really small field (12 riders!?), additional the strong wind = a quiet passive "race".

branchbrook make up race scheduled for July 29

I wonder how the course will race in warm weather with more fit racers. 

I love that course and am excited to find out^

Same. All over this. 

I'm registered 4/5.

Considering the 45+ but I won't have a car and it starts at 6:00. Anyone driving out from Brooklyn?

jim_nelson said:

Considering the 45+ but I won't have a car and it starts at 6:00. Anyone driving out from Brooklyn?

I am if you want to ride w me. i can fit two people.

Greg - thanks. I'll let you know by mid-week. Don't hold the spots if someone else jumps on the offer.

Anyone thinking of doing this race Saturday? 
I was thinking after the race I would do a little more Z2/Z3 riding in NJ. I have some good routes. I can fit 1 - 2 riders in my car. LMK

Sorry - I'm out. 

race report

after 4 hours of sleep, I schlepped out to NJ
but just missed the 4/5 race start. plenty of time to get into the 35+ race tho, which I guess makes me an old man. It was my first masters race. sighs. 

warmed up and all that jazz 

me at race start: 


there were a lot of CAT 1/2/3s in my heat. it started out pretty fast. a pack of 5 or 6 riders broke away at some point -- must have been when I was hiding toward the back bc I didn't even see it. Those guys kept their lead for the entire race. No one seemed interested in closing the gap, with the breakaway extending their lead over time, eventually squashing any hope of catchig them.

the rest of the peleton worked semi hard from that point on. a couple guys tried to jump off the front in the last lap, for which I made sure to stay on their wheel / chase any attempts.

had a mid pack finish. 

we neutralized the women 4 times (that's what happens when ulrik doesn't race). I was jealous. I wish we got neatralized 4 times. 

dave jordan showed up in droves. but they weren't really working together. there were some depot riders. found them to be particularly safe riders, v strong and willing to work with anyone. I liked them. classy stuff.

looking forward to doing branchbook in 2018