Plainsville Spring Crit Series - Cat 4/5

[Bradford]

Sunday, March 8, 2015

This was my first time at the Plainsville Crit and first race of 2015.

The men's Cat 4/5 was the largest race of the day with 35 entries. Located in central CT, the race pulled a lot of cyclists from the New York City area including Foundation Cycling, Kissena, and CRCA.

The course consists of a .6 mile loop and was dry and in relatively good shape considering the winter we've had. Frost heaves were marked, but it was nothing you couldn't roll over if you had to. 40 lap race.

Race rolled out and a 3 man break formed after about 5 laps. They seemed to be pulling away to the point where we were losing sight of them around the corners, so I decided to chase it down. This proved to be unnecessary as we only stayed away for another 5 laps or so. However, the break did immediately identify some of the stronger riders.

With about 15 laps remaining, the Foundation cyclist pulled off the front. He had been attacking earlier but was always brought back. This time, it was a more subtle pull away, not signalling an attack but just a strong effort to get away. I didn't even see him go and only realized when we crossed through each lap and they were shouting 15-20 seconds to the leader. In any case, I was spending a lot of time on the front, and wasn't overly motivated to close the gap by myself. People were not working together and quite content to sit in and suck wheels. In fact, I told this one particular guy who had been doing a lot of nothing to start doing some work - he told me that I was doing a great job and to keep up the good work.

So, with the Foundation rider cruising to victory, we were set up for a 30+ person bunch sprint. I was about four wheels back coming in to the final corner. A strong rider from the earlier break had reappeared at the front so I got on his wheel coming out of the corner, with about 150 m to the finish. He seemed to top out and I still had some more to go, so I swung out with probably 75 m to go and punched it and came across for 2nd place. When I looked back, it seemed like I had opened up a bit of a gap.

I found the race to be relatively fast (for me) compared to my C race experiences at Wells. Averaged around 23.5 mph with a top speed of 42 mph in the sprint. My heart rate basically blew up for almost all of the race, averaging 183 with a max of 199.

I entered the elimination race immediately after, and crashed into a snowbank after about 2 mi. No major damage done, and really a best case scenario to have my first crash.

After missing out on most of last season with the ACL job - it was great to get back in the mix.

http://www.plainvillespringseries.com/

[Fintan]

Well done Brad.

[cbusick]

Awesome Brad!
Crashing into a snow bank in a race isn't something you hear about very often.

[Jacob]

Cool!

[rusto]

Nice work Brad!

[JeremyC]

No surprises after watching you Saturday. Especially the sprint, you have another gear right now that I haven't seen in a while.

[ahamilton]

Nice work Brad. Glad you had a soft landing for your first crash. A 42 mph sprint is pretty spectacular.

[Bradford]

Thanks guys - having fun with it.