For those of you interested in something other than Prospect Park and/or Pawling this weekend (where convincing family to hang out by themselves for many hours while you race might be difficult,) there are intriguing alternatives.

July 7, in West Chester, PA is the Iron Hill Twilight Criterium which features category races during the morning and afternoon hours, and a USA Crit series Pro 1/2 race at night. In between there is an "amateur race finale" where top finishers (i.e. top 25 from master's 35+, top 50 cat 2/3 race) from the day-time races have the option to race again in the evening just before the pro women start their fun. I'll almost certainly be racing at least once here...not sure which category yet.

https://www.bikereg.com/Net/16558

July 8, Connecticut Master Criterium Championships, New Britain, CT. Run on a swoopy, fast and fun course that circumnavigates a large park designed by Frederick Law Olmstead (has a playground, plenty of room for picnic and running around adventures, and a Museum of American art overlooking the homestretch), this race has Master's events, and your standard category events too. I raced here just a month or so ago and am considering going back.

https://www.bikereg.com/Net/16424

Meant to include this link too:

http://www.nbmaa.org/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=13&Itemid=41

Looking at the shot of David with long-sleeved arms in the air, I'm left wondering in what weather system you PP guys were racing? Because in West Chester, PA (2.5 hours from NYC), it was 100-frigg'n degrees.

2 races, one entry fee. Top 50 from the cat 2/3 (and top riders from Master's, Juniors, and 4s too) moved on from a surprisingly entertaining loop around a local high school, to a 4 corner downtown crit later that night, where $100 primes and guys crashing in corner 3 kept things...ahem, interesting.

My 11:30 race went okay. When it became clear I wouldn't be sprinting for a top 20, I let the field get away from me a bit on the last three laps. Still tired from my last stint at work, I wanted to save something for the evening finale.

The 6pm race reminded me of some of my Tour of America's Dairyland events. Complete with guys crashing in an off camber, fast, bad-pavement riddled turn. I stayed upright, but had to chase for 2 laps. I got back on, but was pretty torched from my chase. And when guys started popping in front of me, I didn't have much to close gaps. A few laps later, I was one of the guys getting popped. Unfortunately, I didn't last very much longer after my chase. But I wasn't the only one back in street clothes. By the last 10 laps of the race, the field was down to about 30 guys...about 1/2 the field that started.

In my continuing effort to promote crit racing...I will say that getting to race 2 times in one day on two completely different courses was really fun. In downtown West Chester, there were bands, a dunk tank, family craft table, sidewalk chalk art fun, lots of restaurants to grab some grub.

Heading to CT tomorrow...err, later today.

40 lap, 40-mile crit today in New Britain Connecticut. Rene (who also raced the cat 3s) and I lined up with a pretty healthy field of hammer-heads. The usual folks including We Stand United, and oh, wait...what happened to the sun? Jeremy Powers of Jelly Belly, would you please move your ginormous calves so the lovely greenery of the park can continue to photosynthesize? Also, Mr. Brad Huff of Jelly Belly, about 10 years ago, you narrowly beat my teammate for a national crit championship...today is your time for payback. Harhar.

Fast race, this one is more about finesse, positioning and corning than brute power. While guys were cranking out megawatts, breaking and accelerating because they insist on trying to wedge themselves into spaces where they have no room, I was spinning easy-breezy "the long way around" on the outside and keeping it real.

Mental note to self...invite those watt-cranker-beasts to my next crit workshop...they could use it.

Rene and I had good communication during the race. With about 10 laps to go, I made a strong push to the front. Got shuffled back around 7 to go, and with 4 to go, there's a big crash. Rene and I caught out in it. We chased a bit, but those last few laps went from 2:07-2:11 for most of the race, to 2:00 flat.

On the sidelines, I had my very pregnant wife, her mother, our dog Penny, her mom's dog Sherlock (Penny and Sherlock are now best friends...I will be posting obnoxiously cute video of them playing on my FB page shortly) enjoyed watching the race unfold from a shady spot, with their Subway picnic lunch. You could see 70% of the course from several spots along the course.

Jelly Belly's Huff led out the sprint. J-Pow went down in the crash. Pollo Jr., continues his reign of terror and takes the win.

Pollo Jr., continues his reign of terror and takes the win.

Is this the same guy that I beat in a longish break early in the spring, and then only beat JP by attacking in the joggers lane? He got really good really quick.

It's the same guy. I'm glad that he got dq'ed in that break because it gave me my first p123 top 10.

He's been wearing the green in the L&C races. He's carving out a place for himself among the elite NYC sprinters. Not bad for a 23? year old.

Getting good really quick is an understatement. He went from Cat 4 to Cat 1 in less than a year.

Just ran across this album on Facebook. Rene and Marc lurk amongst these shots:

The last one proves that Rene knows how to pick a good wheel to follow.

The last one proves that Rene knows how to pick a good wheel to follow.

Ha, before I saw the picture, I was imagining it was a shot of him on a train of 4 WS United's and a Keogh Brother, because when I saw them lining up, I was all road-captainy and told Rene to get on that train and not let go...and I was going to be all, "isn't that great of how I did that?" and then I click on the link and see the actual shot and chuckle. They cancelled the Pro women's race, and so it made a lot of sense for her to jump in with us. She raced very well.

Rene, poker face in the mirrored shades.

Just got contacted by this photographer who caught a few shots of Rene & Marc:

http://esnapsport.wordpress.com/new-britain-criterium-gallery-two-070812/
http://esnapsport.wordpress.com/new-britain-criterium-gallery-one-070812/

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4HGzbQNhvTM&feature=plcp