Minuteman Road Club

Great race organization again by MRC. Russ Campbell is amazing. He did a great job. Chris P and Chris B: Great course layout! I never would have thought of it. A ton of guys told me how much they loved the course. It really was a great job by all the volunteers.

Raced both the 4/5 and the Single speed. Bluntly, I was not good in the 4/5. I could claim "volunteer legs" from 3 hours of setup, party the night before, wet conditions, etc. But the bottom line is that my dwindling fitness really played in here. I blew my front row start when I wiped on a turn barely 1/4 lap into the race and 12-15 guys passed me. But my real undoing was that I was getting passed on straightaways. So my turns were bad, but my power was not there either. I do think the cold conditions and not enough of a warm-up played a part. Single speed I believe I was much better. Yes, my legs were tired, but the dry conditions and smaller field allowed me to be smoother. It was actually a lot of fun. I had an entire heckling crew compliments of Jeremy. His kids were great. Chants of "Pirate", "Aargh", and "Shiver me timbers" gave me something to look forward to each half lap. The bonus with Smudger, Stefan, and others yelling about how I would be faster if I just kept running (after the barriers). Thanks guys, you really made it fun! It turned out I averaged about 9:40 per lap for 4 laps during the 4/5 race. I then averaged 9:00 per lap for 5 laps during the single speed.

That is it for CX for me for this year. I don't think I have "the bug", but I decided I will be back next year.

Ditto, great race organization. This one seemed to be pretty flawless by Russ, great job. My 4/5 race report is summed up in this video I posted on Facebook:

https://www.facebook.com/video.php?v=10205068718816997

On a side note, the Rookie Cup is complete. I won't rub it in any more than that, except to say "Shiver me timbers!!!!!"

Kudos to Jeremy. He not only won the Rookie Cup, but dominated beating me in all three by decent margins. My timbers are thoroughly shivered.

Chapeau Russ. Awesome job and a fantastic day had by all.



Also, well said:


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The Minuteman Road Club would like to extend our congratulations to the winners at yesterday's Minuteman Road Club CX p/b Landry's Bicycles and our gratitude to everyone who came out to race. This was the biggest and best one ever!

We are grateful for the hard work and dedication of our volunteers (comprised both of MRC members and the greater NECX community) who went above and beyond the call, cheerfully setting up the course on a cold and rainy Saturday morning, marshaling the course before or after their race, surviving the onslaught of eager racers at the registration table or way out of sight of the racecourse handling the parking scrum, and finally, staying for hours afterwards to removed almost all evidence that a bike race had just taken place.

PJ McQuade, you did a great job of recruiting, organizing and setting our volunteers to task, thank you!

I wish I could have given each and every one of you a huge hug for your help!

Thanks to the two Chris's: Pare and Busick for their course design work, in particular Chris Pare for twisting the Fairgrounds around into a configuration that provided new and surprising challenges on familiar terrain. I've heard nothing but good things about it!

Thanks to John Raguin who put up with an increasingly anxious race director as Sunday approached - your calm kept me from losing it on several occasions!

My sincere appreciation goes out to those people who, at the last minute, took on a big handful of small tasks that I simply could not have done myself - you know who you are - thanks for lightening my load!

Thanks to our race sponsors:

Landry's Bicycles for on site wrenching and generous gift card prizes to our racers
Sports & Physical Therapy Associates for funding our bib numbers
Harpoon Brewery for donating prizes to the Single Speed podium winners

Special thanks to the Happy Taco and 1k2GoSports for providing sustenance to our hungry and thirsty racers as well as to Ron Goguen who produced some yummy treats part way through the day.

Thank you to Bicycle Support by Mark for keeping the racers who needed wheel swaps and in-race mechanical support going.

The MRC is especially grateful for the often unsung efforts of Alan Atwood and his team of USAC officials, who kept the racing orderly and on time.

JD Bilodeau of Pioneer Event Productions deserves special praise for keeping this race director calm when the registration process seemed to be on the verge of coming unglued. He quickly explained what we needed to do to tighten up our workflow. And thanks in advance for fielding the inquiries of a few racers who have questions about their results.

Thank you to Rose Darden, of The Bolton Fairgrounds, for granting us access to their terrific venue!

Thanks to Francine Moody, Lancaster EMT, who was on duty to attend to the medical needs of our competitors!

Thank you to Cindy Brennan for being our "reporter on the ground," read her race report:
http://www.minutemanroadclub.com/2014/1 ... w-england/

And to Katie Busick for taking terrific photos:
https://www.facebook.com/media/set/?set ... 338&type=1

My personal thanks to Paul Boudreau and Colin Reuter who lent me their expertise and experience in the weeks leading up to yesterday with patience and good humor.

Thanks to Gary David for donating boxes and bags of goodies he had left over from Midnight Ride CX!

Lastly, thanks and love to my wife, Sherrill, who jumped in Saturday night and showed hundreds of bib numbers just what a stapler was for.

We are looking forward to hearing about what your experience was like yesterday and using that feedback to take #minutemancx another notch higher next year!

Most kindly,

Russ Campbell, Minuteman Road Club

I've heard nothing but positive feedback about the race which will help next year's event grow even more. MRC events give me that extra boost - call it home field advantage or maybe all of the positive cheers/heckles from teammates, but I've been on the podium 3x over the years, all in our races: Old school MRC Cross in Wrentham in '09, Sterling RR '12 and yesterday at our race. I loved the course. It was the perfect blend of everything. The conditions helped since it was rainy Saturday but dried out all day yesterday. The only thing I would have liked was a longer finishing straight, since I didn't have enough road to pass the BRC guy who edged me, but that's my fault!