Race: NYC Spring Series #2 - Cat 3/4

Time for another Spring Series race.  Numero dos was held in central park again, with a later start time of 6:45am to account for daylight savings time.  Sunrise itself was only around 7:13 or so, so it was a bit dark at the start.  My prep for this race went a lot better than last week's.  I actually ate food the day before, finishing with some chinese food for dinner late at night.  I got a decent night's sleep considering the stupid time I had to get up.  I also stayed at my brother's new house, which is as yet cat-free, so no allergies.  All in all, things were looking up.  I also made sure to bring two bananas and a snapple for breakfast.  No stone unturned, yes sir.

Since I was now somewhere deep in Jersey City, completely clueless as to how I actually got there the night before, my brother offered to drive me over to the race and actually spectate, too!  After stopping up at the old apartment to pick up my left leg warmer that I had forgotten the week before, we got down to the park with plenty of time to register, piss, and warm up.  Some short confusion followed as to which group of riders milling around was supposed to be the 3/4 field, but we got it all worked out.  AVD attached a camera to one guy's bike, which delayed the start a little, but I didn't mind.  More daylight.  I should mention that at this time of day it was balls cold as usual and pretty windy.  Heading home after the race, we saw some decent chop on the hudson, so I'm putting it at about 18ish mph out of the SW.

Apparently there was one crash at the roll-off, but I didn't see it.  My brother told me about it afterward.  I guess some guy ran into the guy in front of him and fell over.  It could certainly be worse.  The field itself was   around 50 guys or so, I would say, so I was figuring on a little bit slower and safer race.  The first lap involved a Cosmic rider attacking on harlem hill, followed by a bit of a lull.  I didn't realize at the time that cosmic guy had been reabsorbed, so I made a little attack of my own to see if I could catch up.  Immediately I saw the pace motorcycle and realized I'm dumb.  Fortunately, another (possibly the same) cosmic rider attacked and bridged.  We traded a few pulls, a kissena and one other rider bridged up.  I went backwards into the field again thinking about how pissed I would be if the breakaway won and I couldn't stay in it.  I stayed around the middle of the pack chatting with a couple of guys.  Average pace of lap one: 23.2mph.

Laps 2 and 3 pretty much followed this format:  I sat somewhere between the top 1/4 and all the way at the back.  I would kind of float back and forth depending on how much I was hurting at the time.  The race itself seemed pretty tame.  I think it was lap 3 that I found myself behind a really good Toga rider.  Real smooth.  It was a nice change of pace from half the sketch-ass riders in the field.  Avg speeds were 23.7 and 23.9 mph, respectively.

The final lap I'm pretty sure was started with me sitting lantern rouge or damn near.  I sat here until harlem hill.  The squiggly road before the bendy road before harlem hill saw one kissena rider laid out on the ground with everyone taking evasive action each way.  I think this was unintended jaunt into the jogger's lane number one.  Along harlem hill, I worked my way up toward the front of the field, sitting roughly in the top 1/4 through to horseshit alley.  By the bottom of cat's paw, I was in the top 10-15 I would say, sitting on the left-hand side.  As I was starting to pick up the pace to begin winding up the sprint, however, what i'm assuming was a leadout rider for some team swung hard to the left right in front of my, going straight into the joggers lane to sit up.  Why anyone would be stupid enough to think this was a good way to pull off after your turn at the front is beyond me.  They didn't look at all, and damn near took me out.  As it was, I had to swing wider into the jogger's lane (unintended jaunt #2) to avoid him taking out my wheel and then getting around him.  Then amazingly enough, after getting back onto the road and starting my jump again, ANOTHER rider from another team (this time I think it was a Scotto's Pizza rider) does the same thing (#3), forcing me into the jogger's lane to avoid another crash because he's also a fucking imbecile who doesn't feel the need to look over his shoulder before launching his bike across the road into the jogger's lane that he is not allowed to ride in.  It was completely mind boggling.  After this, I just said "fuck it" and sat up.  My legs felt dead enough, and having to stop and start twice like that because of completely unsafe and unnecessary riding was just too much.

In conclusion, local racers need to learn how to do a legit leadout (you don't need to move more than a foot to the side and FUCKING LOOK FIRST).  Pack finish for me.  Gotta love the spring series.
http://connect.garmin.com/activity/157176295
NP/IF/TSS: 246W/1.092/123