RAINER’S RACE REPORT FROM RED HOOK!

0 Comment

Rainier’s Race report is up HERE!

4am—Crihs gets kicked out of The Woods. I put down my Whiskey Sweet Tea and head out. Pizza time! So crazy that in New York you can get food at such an ungodly hour. Speaking of hours, sixteen of them later I am under the lights at Red Hook—a brakeless track bike criterium— with spectators crowding the course. The course was awesome, technical and “L” shaped with a swooping “U turn” at one end, a soft left hand turn, a hairpin, and a chicane bending right. You could go full gas into every section of the course, save the hairpin. That section was tight going in but open on the way out, and left fifty meters to the finish.  

During the neutral lap I was elated to wiggle to the very front row of the race, but after another corner and the call-up I was five rows back. The course was so tight that the pack instantly strung out and I was basically in the back. The first time through the chicane was absolute madness! I was in the middle of 100 dudes trying to squeeze through a bottleneck, and we spilled through the cones, with spectators diving out of our way. Aaron Bradford, mulit-discipline national champion, got the first lap prime, and rightly so! While he was doing that, I was avoiding crashes, two directly in front of me. The first two laps I went as hard as I could. It was on lap three that I made it onto the wheels of the leaders. Lap four I attacked. I rolled through the hairpin at the front of the race, and coming out of it, Dan Chabanov, two time Red Hook winner, came around me. He got a bike length gap through the chicane and I couldn’t close it down. Or at least my good sense told me not to make such a tremendous effort four laps into the race. I had a soft rear tire that was freaking me out, bobbling awkwardly in the corners. I regret not checking it more thoroughly before the race. Fortunately, as the race progressed the cones were drawn back to open up the course, and I felt smoother thereafter. Back in the peloton there were about five dudes of a group of fifteen that were doing work. It was cool to race with those I’ve never seen before. I didn’t know who anyone was or what anyone was capable of. Everyone seemed strong, and I was intimidated. There were constant attacks for the duration of the race. Chas Christensan was super aggressive until he lost his front wheel in the hairpin and slid out. The pack moved around him on the ground like a school of fish. He got up instantly but never quite made it back to the front of the race.

It was difficult to get organized because there were so few straight stretches of the course and very few dudes would pull through. Every time I tried to get away, my little gear would hold me back. I was already spinning my gear as fast as I could, how could I go any faster with it? I started to bounce whenever I did. It was here that I wished I had an extra inch or two on my 50-15 gear, maybe a 51-15 would have been nice? So hard to guess that sort of thing without having done a track bike criterium before, or having ridden the course. Anyway, although a couple moves seemed as if they might stick, none got more than five seconds or so, and Dan was between seven and fifteen seconds ahead. I thought for sure we’d shut him down when I heard the announcement of a seven second gap. Who would have thought he’d stay away?! Well he did, and much props to him for a great ride. Walton Brush made an appearance with a few laps to go, although as “designated sprinter” he was instructed to get back in the group. On bell lap, Aaron B and Kacey Manderfield came out of nowhere and got a small gap going into the chicane. I jumped up but we were caught a corner later. Everyone was pretty strung out at this point. I went again to the front and rode as hard as I could to the hairpin. First into the hairpin would be the first to the finish line, that much I was sure of (well I guess technically second into hairpin, second across finish). I expected to get swarmed in the hairpin, but stayed ahead and won the field sprint for second place.