I know this is a long way off, but another crit in the NYC metro area is worth supporting in my book. If we could make Orchard Beach and this one stick, that would more than make up for the loss of Tour de Parc. Plus, it's a great sub for day 2 of Nittany CX.

Course description: "Classic four corner, .5 mile criterium course closed to all traffic. Same course as 1988 U.S. National Criterium Championships and 2007 Empire State Games." (JP, you rode both, right?)

https://www.bikereg.com/Net/16353

I saw this one the other day. Looks good. I'm penciling this one in.

Also tentatively in.

Sadly I will not be able to join you for this. I am getting married the day before. I doubt I am going to make it for a 9AM race the next day.

Weak, Reiners.  Weak.

Heck I am still trying to figure out how to do a CX race in the morning of my wedding. Unfortunatly the drive from Nittany to VT is too far to make it for the ceremony in time.

Tentativo

Heck I am still trying to figure out how to do a CX race in the morning of my wedding. Unfortunatly the drive from Nittany to VT is too far to make it for the ceremony in time.

What, no CX in New England ? 

What, you're not getting married in a CX race?

Sadly she's said I cannot wear a muddy skinsuit to the wedding, so no CX race for the wedding. 

Can someone rename this the Dan thread ? 

BUMP

Are people taking the train up or driving?

I'm planning to do this one. 

I'm registering for the 3/4 race and planning to drive up in the morning. I believe Vlad may be taking a spot in my car, but I should have space for another person and bike if anyone needs it. I won't be staying for the Pro 1/2/3 race though.

I'm relatively close to white plains, so I'm planning on riding up.

@Jeff Condon

Reg'd for 3/4. No reason to think I can't place/win this race.

For those who want to ride from Harlem, I think I'll be riding out of here around 9:20am, heading for The Bronx, then Van Cortlandt Park to pick up the trail that runs north, take that to elmsford, hang a right and get there.

I'll be there with you JP, unless somehow 68 people reg before me tomorrow morning.

Fast race. Mattie got 8th in the 3/4. I finished in the pack around 25th. Had decent position for most of the race but lost it in the last lap (when it counts). Need to work on that. Really well run race and great course. Definitly recommend it, good fun.

Did you see the results board? I had to split before it was posted. Fun, fast race. No crashes, the wide corners kept it from being too squirrely. The little rises helped eject the out of form riders. I slightly feathered my brakes coming into the turn 4 final corner sprint, otherwise I probably could have picked up a spot or 3. Would race again, perfect weather.

Yeah I saw the results board before I left. Also found out that a third of the starting pack dropped out.

JP / Vlad how was the 1,2,3 race?

Jason, Masters?


Sent from my iPhone

Ugh. I agree with the all above - especially the part about the rises, no room to rest on that course. Masters was fast, near to single file and I got spit out the back during the initial weeding-out, about 15 minutes in. Oh I Should have paid more attention in August! 

I was really looking forward to this race.  While the short laps aren't quite to my liking, it's technical enough that skills make a difference, and hilly enough that fitness does as well.  Good for breakaways; lapping the course seems possible, but a break can linger 5-10 seconds ahead for laps on end because with four turns in a half-mile, it's hard for the field to make a concerted chase unless they're really motivated.  

Yo dudes.

This was a good one. One of the best crits I've raced all year and one for the calendar. This one was more urban-y when compared to Harlem, Binghampton, etc.. It featured mostly wide roads varying from business/industry backdrops to townie chic shoppy. Very spectator friendly. All of this in a 0.5 mile four turn loop!

That's right. 0.5 miles! Right turns too! WTF?! My head is still spinning.

There's something about red-lining and seeing a lap card that read 63 that fucked with my head in a whole new way (and that's saying a lot because bike racing has been fucking with my head quite a bit this year).

I lined up with JP. Field was about 50ish deep. I settled in and tail gunned the whole race. Chris Loehner told me to be patient so I hung out. That wasn't easy because surges were brutal and I had to dig really deep to stay with it.

JP was up front and riding strong most of the race. At points we drifted close to each other in the middle. Nearing the end, with fewer than 10 to go, the field thinned out significantly and I was ready to make a move, as was JP I think, but things didn't work out the way we wanted. There was a pretty crazy crash coming out of turn 3 on the last lap that slowed things down a bit for me, but I finished with the field towards the back. JP was up a bit further but out of the money.

We did 68 laps. That's 272 turns. We averaged 26.5 miles for the 1:19 it took to do them in. There were a couple of rises that kept people honest and made things interesting. This played out like a clinic. While not extremely taxing, this was a technical race in that it required sharp focus and great fitness to accelerate and turn so quickly and so often. This race created the spikiest power chart I've ever made. It was almost too fast for my Garmin (note the poor satellite tracking and compound lap data). Moving up was pretty hard on a course this short, especially early on when people still had their strength.

Awesome race. Highly recommended.

My garmin was having issues, too!  I wonder if it was the buildings. Sometimes, I'd get a lap on the line, sometimes several meters before it, sometimes not at all.

mugwump said:

Never saw Vlad the whole race.  Post-race, he said, and I hope I'm getting it right, that he lacked the confidence to go to the front and dive for the corners, so he stayed back and tried to better learn how to take them fast.

That's exactly right. I'm still learning to how to race, and at this level, I'm just not skilled enough to mix it up on the front in a race like this. I'll take the shots when I get them, but I won't do so when I feel like it's dangerous. I'll get there. In the meantime, I'm really happy to be here and be able to compete in a field and race as awesome as this.

perhaps best photo of the bunch

I'll probably do the 40+