Concord Crit - Men's cat 3 - 8-4-08
Concord was a pretty fast race that saw many attacks fail under the constant pressure at the front of the race. There was very little team organization, but with the success of earlier breakaways fresh in the minds of the Cat. 3 racers, most notably Peter Megdal (NEBC) in the Men’s 45+ as well as breaks in the 35+ and 55+, nobody was willing to let a break go too far up the road before trying to make the bridge move.
I stayed near the front of the race keeping my powder dry while Mike Rowell, Julian Gent, and Mark Theeman each made their attacks in an attempt to get an NEBC rider into a good break. Coming into the last lap, a Cambridge Bicycle rider tried to jump away for the entire lap and the response was a little slow. I reacted a little after the initial surge in order to make sure that I could keep myself around 5th position with the front of the pack strung out. I knew that last corner was important, and I was pretty sure that I could outsprint whoever came through the corner first.
Just as we were catching the Cambridge rider, a Dartmouth guy (same guy who took Claremont using the exact same move: jumping the sprint with a late attack from a quarter-mile out) jumped away. Being second wheel, I was a little nervous about chasing him down considering that I had one of the Keoughs on my wheel. I was also nervous, because I was on a new bike with a lower bottom bracket. While it made me feel like I was riding on rails when I carved a corner, I had already had my pedal hit the ground on two separate occasions trying to pedal through a corner. Opening up the sprint out of the last corner, I closed down most of the gap to the Dartmouth rider, but ran out of road before the finish line.
Peter Chiu, 2nd
Mark Theeman, 25th
Mike Rowell, 27th
Julian Gent, 28th
Great race! o Bow Bog road. The rain was a downer for everyone else but me ;)