I think it's finally time to revive race reports!
MRC had some excellent results this weekend, so here's mine on the Nutmeg Crit, 45+
It was hot when I got there. It was damn hot at the 12:15 start. Ice sock was used.
For MRC we had a good squad turnout with Cratty, Ben K, Brian M, Mingori, Pare & Christo T lining up alongside 53 others (by far the largest field of the day), with some serious firepower in the field. Race ended up being 24 laps (which ended up a couple minutes shorter time wise than the advertised 55min, but I was certainly NOT complaining by the end!)
Pare was the protected rider for a bunch finish or a late break. Everyone else was cover early moves and get in early break(s) if the opportunity was there. Early action was hard but not quite the fireworks that were anticipated. We were all present and accounted for near or at the front, which I'd like to think helped deter early huge moves.
After lap 5 or 6 Cratty got out front with a couple others for 2-3 laps. Ben covered some surges while I sat behind Ben. As we approached the backside "climb" finishing lap 8 it was clear they would be caught. I moved up to be right at the front into the climb. Sure enough, right after they were caught a guy from CCNS goes hard over the top. I wait a bit, as Pare's words of wisdom are in my mind - be first or fourth. Boom, 2 more go and as I jump to get on their wheels Ciaran Mangan goes HARD by all 3 of us - there's the wheel to get on! He drags us thru the finish stretch headwind up to CCNS guy and as we come across the line the five of us have a decent gap. Ciaran (Euin Creative) was the only one I knew. The others were CCNS guy who started it all, someone from CycleSmart that wasn't Adam Myerson and someone from Triangle Racing (NY club).
This was at the end of lap 8 (per the FlyBy), less than 19min in and 16 to go.
They all started working. After a couple initial pulls I did do some sandbagging as I wanted to be sure this was going to stick, since we still had other cards to play. As a few more laps clicked by the gap grew so I started working fully equal, putting in some strong pulls on the climb. Somewhere around 9 to go we started dropping off a bit and the gap shrunk. If we were going to get caught, I wasn't going to work but the next time up the hill Triangle guy went hard and Mangan was on him so I had no choice. CycleSmart hung in but CCNS was dropped. As we came thru turns 1 and 2 with 7 to go the gap to the field has gone back up but there are 3 bridging. One is Miles Billings. There wasn't any official discussion, but as the bridge attempt gained on the field the four of us eased off just a bit as a group. With 5 to go, Miles along with John Sakalowsky and Eneas Freyre had joined us to make seven out front. 4 to go Miles and I got out ahead a bit into the climb. With 3 to go I quickly figured out my only realistic chance at a podium was to get a gap on the climb and hope Miles and/or Eneas would also come and could drag me away from the rest of the break. Got a gap but was solo and then hit the headwind. Oh well, let's sit in this lap and try again on the final lap. Went a little sooner into the climb on the final lap but nobody was having anything to do with that (or more likely my "move" at that point wasn't quite as hard as I thought it was!) and coming into the finish stretch I was done so just rolled in for 6th.
And it was even hotter at the finish, as in feet-burning hot.
2021 Nutmeg 45+
Re: 2021 Nutmeg 45+
Now a perspective from Dave's 6. Like he wrote, there was a break towards the beginning that we had to chase down due to no MRC in it. But once Dave's 4-man group got away, the drones started to do our best to slow the pack down. There's an art there. Going too slow, the pack swarms you. Going too fast, the pack can get close enough for riders to bridge. Mid-race we took the approach of going too slow which makes the front have to constantly regroup. Sometimes we had 1 other 2 MRC'ers in front holding the pack as best we could. I don't know what effort I did, but when Miles, Eneas and Jon started to bridge, I was mid to back of pack recouping and when I finally got to the front, I could see them half way to Dave. I so wanted to chase the break down or at least attempt to, but fear of the pack getting within striking distance overruled my desire to spoil the 3-man bridge. If one of us pack MRC'ers could have snapped from the pack, we might have gotten more than one MRC in the break using the bridge as a free ride, but sometimes it's hard to mentally determine what's feasible when you're at 90-95%. (We definitely had a good time discussing that bridge move after the race was over.) To prevent the pack from getting any silly ideas, with 3 laps to go, I got to the front and went hard enough to keep the pack from attacking with an average heartrate of 183 for those 3 laps (on the high side for a 49 year old, but normal for me). I could see that we were gaining on the break but like most breaks, there was some cat and mouse games (like Dave described) they were playing to get setup for the final sprint. With 1/4 lap to go on the infamous hill, the pack attacked me and they totally left me in the dust to limp home for 39th place.
Re: 2021 Nutmeg 45+
Nice job guys. Sounds like it was fun!