Race report courtesy of Chris:
"Here is the Rahway Report (please excuse type-o's, I am pretty tired)
A solid RU team (David, Charlie T, Alex, Rich, Andy, Eric, and myself) headed out EARLY this morning (races started at 7!) for some awesome crit action at our old stomping grounds, Rahway River Park. Eric represented well in the cat 5 and got his first taste of USCF racing, with a little training, this guy is going to be awesome! The rest of us geared up for the Cat 4 race, which turned out to be the highlight of the day. One of the biggest teams in the field, besides Base Camp, we felt like if we worked together we had a chance of at a good showing. The race started off with the Red Train hammering the pace. Rich, Dave, Charlie and Andy put in efforts that can only be described as Pure Power, and Alex was so aggressive on the front that he was countering his own attacks! With 6 laps to go, the field was coming up on Alex after he rocketed off the front, and I countered and got a 50 yd gap with a guy from Base Camp. After towing him around for a lap I asked him to pull and he said, "No, I can't!". After a little encouragement, I got him on the front for about 30 sec, attacked, and dropped him. When the RU boys realized it was just me out front, the punched in and went to work. Everyone did their part, Dave, Alex, and Andy blocked to perfection (it may have hurt DK's powertap readings, but he took one for the team and tamed the beasts that are his legs). In absence of the Prez, Rich (the VP) took control of the pack and made sure nothing came close. Charlie . . . well Charlie attacked with one lap to go (he is just too strong to let his power tamed by pack), but he definitely did his part to keep the pack back. With three laps to go, the gap shrunk to 10 sec, but I knew my boys were working hard, so I found my second wind and gave it everything I had. I streched the gap to 30 seconds and came to the line with the notorious, the glorious LOOK . . . ZIP . . . BALLIN'! I turned around and saw that one of the hardest working guys in the pack, the Kasassian, somehow had enough legs to sprint for 3rd! After the race it was congratulations all around for the RU team, the entire pack thought we ran a beautiful race. 30 minutes later Dave, Alex, Rich, and myself decided that collegiate riders cannot do only one race a day and headed out for the 3/4 race, where we all showed that we had the fitness to hang with the 3's. Rich had the best placing, I think around 15th. All and all, it was a good day for the RU squad, and it showed that we are ready to rock NH next weekend at the ECCC CHAMPIONSHIPS!!!!!
Your Prez,
Chris"
Tuesday, April 22, 2008
Wednesday, April 16, 2008
Beanpot Weekend - FroJoe's Race Report
From our awesome first-year racer Joe:
"Well, the mens D1 road race went a little like this:
Being the lone Rutgers rider in the Mens D, I wont lie, I felt the butterflies.
After the gun went off, or realistically the yelling of "GO" echoed through the air
i was pretty much shuffled towards the back of the pack, and around 400 meters
in someone hit the brakes hard and about 5 or 6 riders went down.
I remember one guy getting his neck ran over as i moved over to avoid the pile up.
I quickly got those bad images out of my head and figured to avoid more
crashes i had to move the front. Even though it was the first lap i decided
to see who had guts and attacked on the hills and had a small break,
but was quickly caught and I moved back into the pack. After the first lap
things picked up on the straight and and i thought since things were speeding up
i better attack on the hills if i wanted a chance to win. So i moved to the front and lead the
race and attacked on the hills again, this time breaking the field as
only four riders went with me. Since i had no clue what to do and thinking
like a runner i just kept pounding and had a nice break and was alone for awhile.
I was adventually caught towards the end of down hills. I clearly didn't have weight or momentum
on my side. As we closed in on the finish line i kept with the pack only beating a
UVM rider on the sprint and the rest beat me but i picked up 5th place out of 50 i believe.
FROJOE"
"Well, the mens D1 road race went a little like this:
Being the lone Rutgers rider in the Mens D, I wont lie, I felt the butterflies.
After the gun went off, or realistically the yelling of "GO" echoed through the air
i was pretty much shuffled towards the back of the pack, and around 400 meters
in someone hit the brakes hard and about 5 or 6 riders went down.
I remember one guy getting his neck ran over as i moved over to avoid the pile up.
I quickly got those bad images out of my head and figured to avoid more
crashes i had to move the front. Even though it was the first lap i decided
to see who had guts and attacked on the hills and had a small break,
but was quickly caught and I moved back into the pack. After the first lap
things picked up on the straight and and i thought since things were speeding up
i better attack on the hills if i wanted a chance to win. So i moved to the front and lead the
race and attacked on the hills again, this time breaking the field as
only four riders went with me. Since i had no clue what to do and thinking
like a runner i just kept pounding and had a nice break and was alone for awhile.
I was adventually caught towards the end of down hills. I clearly didn't have weight or momentum
on my side. As we closed in on the finish line i kept with the pack only beating a
UVM rider on the sprint and the rest beat me but i picked up 5th place out of 50 i believe.
FROJOE"
Tuesday, April 01, 2008
March Photos
With some of our most active and most successful racers being a bit taciturn these days, the blog has been mighty quiet. Here are some photos from the past few weeks of racing. Stay tuned for more writeups!
Photos are by Tom Moroney and Will Cukierski. More photos are available on the Rutgers Cycling webpage.
Photos are by Tom Moroney and Will Cukierski. More photos are available on the Rutgers Cycling webpage.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)