Minuteman Road Club

In bike racing, I feel I either have bad days I luck into a good result, or great days I finish last. Today was the latter, and I felt good about it. Course was 0.7 miles long, 4 corners, little hill between 3 and 4, and all sorts of cobbles and manhole covers and other shenanigans on the front stretch. Being new here, and never having heard of Maine being much of a cycling community, I decided that in a field of 35, I could probably afford to be aggressive. Turns out, Maine is pretty good at cycling too! We averaged 28mph flat for the hour crit, which was pretty quick considering turn 1 pavement condition had us down to about 15 or so every time around. The decision to ride aggressive paid huge dividends for me, as I sat in the top 7 riders nearly the entire race. There was some pretty bad whip going on in the turns, so I was relatively comfortable up front. 15 min in someone sailed down the road, and they lasted the rest of the way, kudos to them. Behind, I was busy surfing between the various chase moves that tried to counter, but no one ever looked committed or fast enough for me to put my head down and cooperate. Status quo ruled until 10 to go, when the attacks heated up again. With 7 laps left, a kid from Middlebury college attacked the field and I thought, "finally someone who looks serious is making a move". So I followed him and we got a decent sized gap, maybe 7 seconds. I pulled through, and a straightaway later I was alone off the front... COME ON MAN! At this point, the decision was, do I commit to this and risk not having time to recover, or just head back to the field? Well, I chose to be bold! With 3 laps to go, and still holding the 1 major team organized up front at bay by 7 sec, I let myself think maybeee I could get it done. 2 to go still hanging on.. 1 to go uh oh... They got me with a little less than 1 lap to go, and I went straight out the back. So, on a day when my result didn't tell the whole story, I at least got a nice round of applause and cheers as I crossed the line from the couple hundred people who had milled down to watch the finish. Consolation prize!

Not so sure how I feel about GMSR.. I can fake a crit not a RR.. But I am really optimistic about Mayor's Cup right now. I haven't raced much this season, so I still have fresh legs and for averaging 28 today, I was dangerously spry at the end..

Joe, sounds like an awesome job to me. You can never tell how someone raced just by looking at the results. Looks like the Mayor's Cup is right in your wheelhouse.

Sounded like a good effort Joe. It looks like a CCB guy was off the front so your move was probably a good one given that CCB was not going to chase you down. But then they probably got close enough to the line that they knew the 1st place CCB was not going to get caught, so then they worked in an effort to try to get other CCB guys on the podium.

Yep, Mayors Cup sounds like a good place for you. I am planning on going and will work for anyone there.

Awesome effort and report Joe. I know you're new to the area, but most locals know that Tim Mitchell is a beast and can time trial with the best of them, so its no wonder he stayed off the front.

Yup that is the best move to follow he is a masters world champion lol!