Bike Jam/Kelly Cup Elite Women's Team Race Report
National Road Calendar (NRC) level crit, Baltimore, MD
Clara Kelly (21st), Rebecca Wellons (29th), Susanne Delaney (37th), Natalie Dumont, Sam Dery, Brooke O’Connor (crashed out)
How it unfolded…
From first glance, course appears to just be a big “D” shape through a park. Think again – right from the start, the course narrows to go counter-clockwise 3/4 around a rotary and out on a sharp right. Fast down a slight hill, to still fast on a flat and then 3/4 around a clockwise rotary and exiting with a sharp left. Finally 400 meters is a bend to the right and up into a headwind to the finish line. This course can be a bit dangerous in the fact that it narrows a couple of times, there are two sharp (>90 degree) turns out of rotaries and there are no curbs between the roadway and grass. Can you say “practice your cyclecross skills”? Most all the same women who were in Wilmington the day before showed up to the line in Baltimore.
Another fast race from the beginning. Ladies must have been tired form the day before as the pace didn’t stay at the high pace as consistently as it did the day before. Australian national team, Team Type 1 and Altarum were instigating attacks this day. One of the Australian team members got off the front with a 8 second gap. Right afterwards, only about 11 laps into this 20 lap race, there was a woman who went into the dirt/grass on the right side of the field, lost control of her bike, it went flying through the air and caused a pile-up of about 30 women (everyone behind the crasher). No one from NEBC went down, but someone from another team (Verducci) might have broken her collarbone. Since the pit and the start line were right up ahead, the officials stopped the field as it came around. They let the Australian have her 8 second lead, and then let the rest of the field go.
At one point we got to within 5 seconds of the Australian, but no team was making any concerted effort to close the gap and she opened it to 20+ seconds at one point. As we were moving up the field towards the front to prepare for the finish, with a little more than 2 laps to go, as we were coming out of the second rotary, the woman on Brooke’s left (inside of sharp corner) got up to accelerate out of the corner, her rear wheel came out of the drop-outs and she wiped out her bike right in front of Brooke and another woman. Brooke flew/slid/rolled on her back and somehow landed on the dirt/grass on the right side of the course. The woman who caused the crash fled the scene right away carrying her bike (she must not have wanted to hear us yell at her for not making sure her bike was in proper condition for racing). Brooke’s rear wheel was trashed and she got a tire mark road rash on the BACK of her left knee – very odd. NEBC skinsuit was thick enough material to get dirt skid marks, but did not rip and saved Brooke’s back from getting totally rashed. The Australian ended up finishing 8 seconds head of the field in a well-deserved victory. Sprint queen Laura Van Gilder (who won Wilmington the day before), won the field sprint this day for 2nd.
Clara, Rebecca and Susanne hung in with the pack to the finish strong, while Nat and Sam came to find Brooke and make sure she was okay.
Tough first weekend of NRC crits, but we’re getting ready for the next sets of crits this upcoming weekend…