Yale University Bulldog Cycling

Easterns Race Report: Penn State!

noreply@blogger.com (Yale Cycling) — Tue, 30 Apr 2013 14:06:00 +0000

This week the squad of bulldogs that set out to State College, PA this weekend for the Eastern Championships favored quality over quantity. While many riders bowed out citing "final exams" and "work", a stoic few made the six-hour journey in an effort to reclaim the Ivy League trophy. It was a trip well worth making, with halcyon weather, glorious scenery, and spectacular displays of cycling flair (we're looking at you, UVM and Penn State) and equally prestigious peep-eating contests.

TTT

Saturday's events kicked off with the team time trial, a 10-mile course that was the reverse of last year's. Despite Adam's description of the course as "rolling", the second half actually featured a sustained climb of about 200 ft, reducing many teams to a methodical pace. Danny made a nicely timed sprint for the line to finish strong for the men's B squad---he, Travis, and Adam placed 6th. Meanwhile, our men's D team (John & Matt) took fifth and women's A (Erica, Hannah A, Colleen, & Julia) narrowly missed the podium, finishing 4th.

Black Mo' Road Race

Possibly the most infamous road course on the ECCC circuit, Black Mo' is a 21-mile lap featuring a series of hills optimistically described as rollers, several screaming descents, and a formidable 1800 foot climb. After a short moment of panic during which the absence of fire police threatened to replace with the course with an ITT up the steep side of Black Mo', the races were off.

photo credit Alyssa M. Wentz of Shippensburg

In the first wave, men's C set off for two laps. The pack remained cohesive until the climb. With the fox in the henhouse, Danny got the bit between his teeth, excercised his climbing legs, and dropped multiple riders on the long uphill segment of each lap to finish midpack. Travis worked with the group of self professed "nonclimbers" further back, and then decided it would be nice to go ride the course backwards after the race. In men's D, a start line crash threatened to derail several riders, but the Yalies remained upright for the entire lap. The peloton overcommitted on the rollers, shredding themselves and allowing a patient John to make his move on the bigger climb. Climbing like an angel, he easily passed the majority of field, placing himself in a lead group of three riders where he "soft peddled to the top". He sprinted to third overall and second in division 2, finishing his first season with a bronze medal. He'll be a rider to watch next year: look out, ECCC! New rider Matt S dug deep to finish in the pack, sweeping up many of those who surged in the beginning, after wisely heading advice about race nutrition and pacing on the climbs.

Last in wave 1 was the women's C field. Plucky rider Julia had far too much fun on the hills, reportedly wishing for a second lap and then riding the steeper backside of the major climb after the race. While struggling on the descents, she found the climb "meditative" and comfortably passed several riders to finish well in the points, proving that she's both a formidable hill climber as well as a great sprinter.

As the sun reached its peak, wave 2 readied itself to tackle the course. With no men's A riders this week, Yale's first rider to set off was Adam in the two-lap men's B race. A group of 4 riders or so went off in the opening miles. Some superb blocking on the part of PSU and NYU led to a tranquil pace into the lower reaches of the first ascent of Black Mo. Not content to soft-pedal the entire climb, Adam rode the limits of the yellow line around the blockade at the front and soloed away from the peloton, to shouts of "It's okay his legs aren't shaved!" He spent the most of that climb alone on Black Mo, and sat up towards the top to join a group of 10 or so that had broken away from the field. The next lap was much faster, as a PSU rider inexplicably worked very hard to catch his own guy in the break, with UVM and Columbia lending riders to the effort as well. On the second ascent of Black Mo, the reduced group caught several members of the break and fractured further. Adam was fifth over the top of the climb, worked with a group of three or four on the rollers atop Black Mo, and ended up finishing 8th overall, less than a minute behind the winner.

Last to leave were the women's A/B riders. The women rode like scalded cats. As if a bomb went off in the field, the field shattered on the first rollers. Hannah A, in her second road race of the season, astounded the ECCC with what Joe Kopena singled out at the awards banquet as "a very impressive performance." Forming a four-woman lead group that included maillot jaune Hayley Wickstrom for most of the race, Hannah thoroughly enjoyed ripping the legs off the rest of the women. She dominated the B field, beating the second-place rider by nearly twenty minutes, and taking third place overall. Erica found herself at the back of the pack after the rollers but once in the intestines of Black Mo', took advantage of the long climb to slowly pick riders off, eventually finding herself on the wheel of sprint leader Leslie Lupien. Although she ultimately couldn't maintain Leslie's pace the second time up the mountain, she eventually finished 7th in As. Meanwhile, Colleen made the difficult but wise decision to listen to the warnings of an achy tendon and pull out after one lap, choosing instead to save her performance for nationals.

Frat Row Crit

photo credit Alyssa M. Wentz of Shippensburg

After stuffing our faces with barbecue at the awards banquet, the team got a good night's sleep before the leisurely 8:30 start time of Sunday's crit. The six-corner course featured a narrow chicane, a long finishing straight, and fewer drunk frat boys than previous years' editions.

John & Matt heeded advice to win the race before the race, staging early and maintaining positions in the front of the race for the first few laps. Unfortunately, a dropped chain in combination with misdirection from the race officials took John out of contention, but not without some important lessons learned about position at the start line and which mechanicals qualify for free laps. Matt finished strong in 15th position. Great work, Matt!

photo credit Alyssa M. Wentz of Shippensburg

Next up was Danny in a dangerously large C field. Not unexpectedly, several riders overcooked the chicane, and the ensuing crashes shattered the field into several groups. Danny rode a smart race, and fought his way into the second chase group, putting out several impressive accelerations and ultimately finishing a fantastic 25th in a field of 63.

With new confidence in cornering after an on-course warmup, Julia set off to tackle her cornery-est crit yet. Despite beautiful form through the chicane, a flat after the start-finish line necessitated a trip to the pit. Unfortunately, in the following lap, the peloton split into two groups, and Julia was put back in the race in the second of these. Nevertheless, she dug deep into her suitcase of courage, rode away from the field, and soloed the remainder of the race to finish right behind the leaders in 5th. Amazing season, Julia! We look forward to seeing you in the B field next year!

In men's B, Adam lost the race before the race, staging at the very back of the field. However, each lap saw him moving steadily toward the front of the field---no small feat considering the pace and the narrow streets. He ultimately finished an impressive 19th in the field sprint, thus concluding his ECCC career.

Last to set off was Erica in the A/B race. A a poor start position in conjunction with the discovery that she had left everything on Black Mo' the previous day meant that she quickly found herself at the back of the pack, but with a newlyacquired, loudly cheering frat-boy fan until she was pulled and placed.

While Yale ultimately conceded the Ivy League trophy to Dartmouth, we finished fifth in the conference and third in our division. Awesome work this season, everyone! We've all got a lot to be proud of and have had a season to remember.

While the 2013 ECCC season has thus concluded, we are thrilled to announce that we are once again sending a full team of riders to collegiate road nationals in Ogden, Utah again this year. Best of luck to Spencer, Nick, Matt, Adam, Marina, Krysten, Colleen, and Erica! Ride on, Bulldogs!

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PS - Did you catch those misused and overlayed Liggettisms? We have set up surveillance and are watching for Nick's reaction. We just hope he doesn't hurt himself in his anticipated state of acute mental anguish.

Rhode Race Report!

noreply@blogger.com (Yale Cycling) — Thu, 25 Apr 2013 00:45:00 +0000

You wonder while around Rhode Island just how an area the size of a postage stamp got two US senators. And it’s not even an island!! Anyways, Saturday’s races basically required every single road in the state, so Yale got a full tour of all the fun Rhode Island has on offer.

The Elis arrived in the fair town of Scituate, RI at the crack of dawn, and the beat dropped at 8:30 with the shortest TTT of the year—a four mile straight shot with one turnaround. For what it’s worth, none of us has the faintest idea how to pronounce “Scituate.” While relatively non-technical, the damp roads required a little bit more care than normal from our racers. The Men’s D squad was first out the gate. Matt Schullman, Amogh Sivarapatna, John Wen, and David DeWitt quickly made friends and worked together for a third place finish. Next to depart was the Men’s A team of Adam, Matt, Nick, and Spencer. The boys settled into a good rhythm in the second half of the course and finished strong but conceded second place to Dartmouth by a heartbreaking 1 second.

In the second wave, the Men’s C contingent of Dan Spakowicz, Daniel Del Bosque, Danny Schlingman, and Travis Rabbit squeaked into the points for fifth, and the Women’s A cohort (Marina Wilding, Erica Blom, Kelsey Lynd, and Krysten Koehn) put the hammer down to finish third. Third place would also go to the Women’s B team of Hannah Garrett and Elif Erez.

The dark and dingy morning weather began to clear after the TTT and our racers girded their loins for the longest road race on the calendar—the “Tour of Scituate”—a rolling 23 mile circuit featuring some Battenkill-worthy dirt roads, stiff winds, and punchy rollers all of which would suit the hard men and women of the ECCC.

The Men’s D and Women’s C racers departed at 10:30 for a single lap of the course. John Wen struggled in the absence of any sustained climbing but maintained position as best he could throughout the day. He finished just behind the second group in 19^thplace. Our newest team member, Matt Schullman, also finished mid-field in his first mass start race, having skipped the intro category and jumped straight into D. Further back, Amogh, and David demonstrated solid teamwork and rode a race to be proud of. In Women’s C, Elif persisted despite the difficult course to finish with the field, still having the energy to continue on her own solo training ride afterwards.

The A and B mens and womens, and C mens categories decamped at 12:30 for their races.

First to leave were the Men’s A racers. The Tour of Scituate would be the final ECCC road race for several of the A riders and the Yalies rolled out hungry for a result. Three riders including Spencer attacked from the gun and built a gap that reached a maximum of 10 minutes. Matt and Nick ably covered counterattacks from KMS and MIT, and in an unprecedented turn of events early break would survive. In the final kilometer, Spencer turned himself inside out to win the sprint out of the exhausted three-man group and give the Bulldogs their first Men’s A victory of the season!! Way to go Spencer!!!! Matt finished with the field in 18^th, while Nick suffered a flat tire on the second lap and was unable to rejoin the field.

A large field showed up for the Women’s A/B race, and while the field split into two main packs early on, solid chasing on the part of the second group reunited most of the riders. On the final lap, a two-woman break including the yellow jersey got away, gaining two minutes on the rest of the riders, who finished in a field sprint. Krysten, Erica, and Marina finished 8^th, 10^th, and 11^th respectively in As, while Kelsey finished first in the B race and Hannah grabbed 16th! Great work girls!!!

In the Men’s B race, Adam fell victim to the sharp rocks on one of the course’s dirt sections, and bad luck befell several of our C riders as well. Dan Spakowicz suffered two flats and dropped out of contention, but fortunately flatted a second time just as the Men’s A field passed and snagged a neutral wheel from the follow car. Del Bosque finished his first race since Rutgers after eating too little in the first miles of the race and bonking hard but worked with Travis, who had flatted at the start line and started the race with a brake rub from a wider than normal replacement wheel. Sometimes simpenjoying the ride and company of teammates is winning for the day.

Sunday’s criterium in downtown Providence had “MISERY” and “DANGER” written all over the course map. The 8-corner crit featured a steep power climb with gradients up to 15%, a bumpy descent into an off-camber left-hand corner, and a high-speed chicane. After consultation with the various heads of state in the ECCC, officials decided to cut out the climb and descent from the course, leaving in a safer but shorter 6-corner course. This was accomplished in mindbogglingly efficient fashion by the efforts of a few good Yale riders, the use of our trailer, and a hoard of West Point cyclists.

The short course meant riders falling off the pace would be pulled more aggressively than a longer course, and position in the field became even more important to avoid splits in the field. In the early races, John Wen navigated a treacherous D pack to finish with the bunch. Danny Schlingman suffered after he found himself in a chase group at the back of the C race but soldiered on until he was pulled and placed in the closing laps. In the Bs, Adam similarly found himself in a disorganized chase group but mounted a brave solo bridge effort after remembering to ride in his drops.

Next up was the Women’s A/B race, which was one of the most exciting yet in the calendar. The pace was high from the get-go when several riders ignored the "neutral until the cones" instructions. A hungry field combined with several well-organized teams resulted in a flurry of earnest but unsuccessful attacks. After the early hubbub subsided, two MIT riders TT’ed off the front. Despite relentless chasing by the yellow jersey, the two stayed away to take the top spots on the podium. Amid the commotion, Erica dug deep to hold her position with the leaders, while Marina, Kelsey, Krysten and Hannah suffered after their mammoth efforts in yesterday’s road race. Kelsey and Marina worked together to bridge back up to the chasers, but the pace at the front was ultimately too high. Erica finished highest of the Bulldogs in 19^th place.

The Men’s A riders rolled out last under sunny skies. With Spencer’s form uncertain after his Olympian efforts yesterday, the plan was for Matt and Nick to go for the breakaways. Unfortunately, a touch of wheels on the second lap sent Nick to the ground and ruled him out of contention for the rest of the hour. The aggressive pace and dominant tactics from KMS put a damper on the team’s ambitions, and Matt and Spencer would settle for 19^th and 20^th place respectively. Nick DNF’ed after dropping out to tend to his wounds.

In sum, then, a great weekend for Bulldog Cycling—Yale finished fourth overall and took their first A win in many seasons. Next week Yale travels to State College, PA for the ECCC Championships. See you on the road.

Army Race Report!

noreply@blogger.com (Yale Cycling) — Tue, 16 Apr 2013 15:55:00 +0000

The 29th Army Spring Classic

The ECCC gathered this weekend at West Point, NY for the 29^th edition of the Army Spring Classic. The race is the conference’s oldest continuously running event, and each year the Army weekend heralds spring’s full and jubilant arrival. When combined with West Point’s natural elegance it’s a welcome event for race-weary cyclists. It’s also the only race weekend where you’ll have the privilege of a Humvee for a pace or follow car. Not only can they bulldoze cars pesky cars obstructing your path, they scare the bejesus out of you when they downshift, which means extra motivation to move up in the field on the climbs... Anyways...

SATURDAY

Though steeped in tradition, the Army Spring Classic took a page from the New York amateur playbook for Saturday’s road race. While recent editions had featured team time trials and/or circuit races, riders would compete this year on the course of the famed Harriman Road Race. Its principal attraction: a 50-mph downhill run into a sharp 180-degree “Corner O’ Death,” followed by a nasty cat. 3 climb. Long, straight open roads for the remainder meant high speeds and breakaways would be the game of the day.

John Wen, David DeWitt, and Julia Schlesinger kicked things off for the Yale team in the Men’s DII and Women’s C fields. In the DII race, John used his superior power-to-weight ratio to make the race’s critical selection when an equally bird-like NYU rider attacked on the first long climb. He would finish 4^th—the best finish for a Yale D rider all year!! David did not find the parcours quite so fulfilling and decided to conserve himself for Sunday’s races. In Women’s C, Julia persevered through her most demanding road race yet, but an astonishing act of violence upon her rear tire and front derailure brought a premature end to her day.

The A riders led off the second wave of races at 11:30, followed closely by the Women’s A/B, Men’s B, and Men’s C races. The Men’s A race began on a difficult note with Matt suffering a moderate head cold and Nick nearly running over all-star photographer Jan Polk. After several difficult laps, Matt withdrew to rest for Sunday’s races. With two laps to go, some hard chasing by Yale, Dartmouth, and MIT had reeled in the early break and riders were jumping at the bit to get away. Amid the parry and thrust of attack and counterattack, Nick broke away with a BU and Penn State rider on the back half of the course. The Penn State rider rode both his compatriots off his wheel and sauntered on to win the day, while peloton swallowed Nick and his fellow escapee at the top the climb on the final ascent. With Nick spent, it was Spencer’s turn to deliver his first top-10 finish since Stevens. Woohoo!

While the first lap was treated as a warm-up in women's A/B, the race slowly turned into a battle of attrition in the ensuing laps as the elite riders contented themselves to ride tempo and slowly turn the screws on the rest of the field. Out of the slow-motion wreckage emerged a select group including Army, MIT, Pittsburgh, and Dartmouth. Krysten, newly upgraded to Women’s A, and Erica joined small chase groups as the third lap shattered the remainder of the field. Erica finished in 11^th place after a close sprint for 10^th, while Krysten finished 15^th. In Women’s B, Colleen and Hannah suffered but put together a great day of training for their future exploits. Colleen finished 9^th, while Hannah decided to pre-empt the official and dictate her own terms. Keep it up ladies!

In men's B, a bad crash in the lead group at the finish line forced the officials to neutralize the race; only 12 riders were ultimately placed. In the C race, Jimmy Martenson finished just inside the top-10 after working his way into the chase group, with Dan Spakowicz arriving several minutes behind in 18^th, maintaining his most-consistent-rider status. Danny Schlingman and Travis Rabbit were P&P’ed and finished 26^th and 29^th, respectively, persevering amidst many in the field around them dropping out of the race and a corner marshal misdirect incident.

SUNDAY

After a hearty dinner and watching Yale Ice Hockey shut out Q-Pac to take Yale’s FIRST EVER NATIONAL CHAMPIONSHIP (!!!!!!), the Bulldogs rolled into West Point ready to check the rest of the ECCC into the Wattage Cottage for the day.

First up was the infamous Army Hill Climb Time Trial—an excruciating 2.6 mile course featuring several steep ramps of climbing punctuated by brief opportunities for recovery. The course concluded with a dastardly twisting false flat up an access road that kept the finish line out of view until the last few seconds of the race. Highlights included John Wen’s 5^th place finish in DII, Erica’s 9^th place finish in Women’s A, and Colleen’s 4^th place in Women’s B. Shout-out to Adam for finishing seconds out of the points in men's B despite a dropped chain. Great work folks!

Army’s famous Shea Stadium Criterium concluded the weekend’s racing. Like the earlier races, the simple three-corner course map belied the race’s vicious nature. A volatile mixture of a beyond 90-degree corner, a miserable crosswind off the Hudson river, and a steep rise to the start-finish conspired to keep riders fighting to stay in contention from the gun.

Without the steep grades necessary to deploy his mountain-goat climbing skills, John Wen suffered in the criterium. Nevertheless, he and David DeWitt worked together to stay with the group as the DII brawlers duked it out at the front of the bike race. Nice work boys.

Dan, Jimmy, Danny, and Travis came to the CII race ready to brawl themselves, and after struggling to maintain position for the first third of the race Dan and Jimmy muscled their way into the business end of the office, keeping the pace high and demonstrating some excellent team strategy. Danny himself tried his hand in an early prime and showed good sprinting form to take third. The two Dans crossed the finish line side by side for 12th and 13th, with Jimmy not far behind and Travis rounding it out.

Julia took to the road next in women's C and deployed her race acumen to hold a consistent top-10 position. With yesterday’s mechanical mishaps a thing of the past, she finished 8^th in the sprint.

The Men’s B race saw the first real tactical race of the day as riders repeatedly played their hands to upset a bunch sprint. However, the stiff wind put solo riders and small groups at a disadvantage relative to the field and the gaps stayed in the low-teens. Adam marked several attacks in an effort to put his signature Boyd 58s to work, but ultimately yet another finish-line crash put the kibosh on his sprint. He finished 31^st.

Erica and Krysten set out for revenge after yesterday’s road race and rode a smart race in the Women’s A event. Krysten kept a watchful eye on the eager attackers as best she could while Erica rested behind. Several attacks kept the pace high and ultimately a small squadron of the usual suspects broke away. Nevertheless, Erica put in powerful sprint to take 10^th with Krysten not far behind in 16^th. Colleen and Hannah fell victim to the surging and placed 13th and 14th in the B field.

Last up were Men’s A. With Matt out due to illness, Spencer and Nick would try for the breaks. The field would have none of it, however, and set a blistering pace in the early laps to discourage attacking. Nick made several efforts to get clear but lacked the power to really put the cat amongst the pigeons. With Nick languishing after his early exuberance, Spencer put his legs to the test and bridged to several dangerous splits in the field. A touch of wheels in the first corner with 1 to go, however, derailed plans for a sprint finish and both riders rolled in well down in the standings.

All in all, despite illness, mechanicals, and some bad luck, the Bulldogs saw some great performances in D and C categories, women, and a top-10 in the A road race to finish 10th on the weekend. On Saturday, the Yalies ship up to Providence for the inaugural RISD/Brown cycling weekend, featuring the longest road race on the calendar, the shortest team trial, and a 6-corner criterium in downtown Providence.

Enjoy the weather! See you on the road.

Shippensburg Race Report

noreply@blogger.com (Yale Cycling) — Mon, 08 Apr 2013 22:16:00 +0000

Shippensburg, Pennsylvania, you ask? You might imagine a charming port city full of comings and goings and all manner of colorful characters, but you’d imagine wrong. This weekend’s destination instead lay in the rolling country of southern Pennsylvania not 20 miles from the Mason-Dixon line. The, ahem, rich smells and sight of horse-drawn buggies made it abundantly clear that the Bulldogs had come far from rough-hewn New England indeed.

Saturday’s schedule featured a criterium on the campus of Shippensburg University, followed in the late afternoon by a 7-mile mass-start hill climb on the outskirts of town. The criterium featured two 90-degree and one sweeping 180-degree left hand turn with a sharp uphill kick before the finish line. The final left hand turn proved to be a source of difficulty in the lower categories, but the Yalies kept the rubber side down during the a.m. races. In Men’s DII, John Wen held on to finish 12^th as the bulk of the field as P&P’ed. In the C race, a group of four riders broke clear of a disorganized field to win by over a minute. Jimmy Martenson finished safely mid-pack in 30^th place. In Men’s B, Adam worked hard to stay with the group as NYU and UVM battled back and forth for control of the race. He finished safely in the group.

In a change from the usual schedule, the A men took to the road ahead of the women next. Penn State, Pittsburg, and local riders from Shippensburg and Kutztown came ready to put the hammer down, and from the gun it was on like Donkey Kong. Matt and Nick worked for the first half of the race to keep Spencer near the pointy end of the peloton and shut down several attempts by riders to get clear. When a mid-race consultation revealed Spencer’s lack of sensations, however, Nick and Matt began riding for their own chances. Matt fought his way into a promising but unsuccessful group of five, and Nick got away in a three-man break several laps later.

Misfortune struck as Nick clipped a pedal in the turn, sending him to the deck and out of the race. With several laps to go, the field was back together and the race wound up for the final sprint. Going into the final turn, a rider tried to move up on the inside and forced Spencer into the outer curb. The crash forced Matt to slam on the brakes, costing him his position in the final sprint. (Public Service Announcement: DON’T PASS ON THE INSIDE OF A CORNER)

In the absence of the formidable MIT women's squad, the women's A/B crit maintained a comfortable pace for most of the race, keeping almost the entire group together until the sprint finish. As in the previous races, the final corner proved too much for a couple of riders, but the Yale team managed to skirt the carnage and finished 3rd (Krysten), 9th (Marina) and 10th (Erica), with Krysten grabbing some prime points as well.

After some misadventures searching for emergency medical care, the Bulldogs reconvened for the afternoon’s mass start hill climb—a 7-mile race featuring a flat but windy 2 mile prologue and a subsequent ascent to the ridgeline south of Shippensburg.

First out the gate for Yale was John in Men’s DII, who put his hill training to work in an impressive 5^th place. Great work John! Jimmy quickly followed in the Men’s C field, which quickly disintegrated on the slopes of the climb. Jimmy kept calm and carried on on for a solid finish in the top-20. Yale’s strong showing continued in the B race as Adam “T-Rex” Trexler put in a massive effort to finish inside the top-10. Awesome racing boys!

The A men rolled out bruised in body but ready for battle at heart. On the lower slopes of the climb, Nick went to the front and drilled the pace for as long as he could before dropping himself and leaving the race to Matt and Spencer. Matt turned a pedal in anger to finish fourth with Spencer close on his heels in seventh place. Nick rolled across the line in 25^th.

Last to leave were Yale’s A and B women. Marina and returning rider Hannah Arem made the coveted selection on the climb and worked together to stay in contact with the leaders. As the sun declined on the racers in the final meters, Marina displayed some perhaps unjustified kindness by leading out a Dartmouth rider but nonetheless finished in a fantastic 6^th place. Hannah rode to first place in B’s a few seconds later while Erica rode a steady tempo to finish 12^th. Great job, ladies!

Sunday featured the Horse Killer Road Race—a brutal course featuring an ascent of the eponymous Horse Killer Road (“In these parts, they name these roads for a reason”), a technical descent featuring a blind, off-camber left hand turn, vicious winds and rough pavement in many stretches.

The Men’s D race covered a shortened course that omitted the climb but none of the wind. John kept out of trouble and out of the breeze amid a sketchy field. As a man who prefers his feet and inches over meters, John took the “1K to go” sign as an interesting piece of advice rather than a finish line indicator and calmly rolled across the line in 15^th place.

Jimmy was the first Yale rider to take on the full course. Unfortunately, a dropped chain early in the race meant that he chased heroically for forty miles, nevertheless passing many riders on the climb and managing to finish mid-pack in the C field.

Adam set out with a plan to mark UVM’s mountain goats and fight hard for a top-10 finish in Men’s B. Unfortunately, an ill-timed puncture on the first lap spelled the end of his Shippensburg campaign with no follow car to supply a new wheel.

Last out were the Men’s A and Women’s A/B fields. With temperatures in the low-60s, riders could at least look forward to warmer weather than past weekends. The Men’s A race, however, would prove to be a wash. Nick flatted on the first lap and chased for the remainder of the race until he was pulled and placed, while Spencer’s elected to withdraw after two laps in light of the previous day’s injuries. An errant touch of wheels in the last 400 meters brought Matt down and dashed his chance for another top-10 finish.

The women proved to be the bright spot in an otherwise average day of road races. The A/B race began at a leisurely pace as riders took stock of the course and each other. The climb produced the anticipated separation, but cautious descending allowed riders to catch back on. The first ascent popped Erica and Krysten, who each chased for the remaining of the race. Erica finished 13^th in A’s, while Krysten, ever the opportunist, decided to slink back and draft the Men’s A field for the remainder of the race. She would finish 3^rd in B’s. The second climb sent both Marina and Hannah out the back, but they both managed to rejoin the leaders amid the blustery winds on the back-half of the course. By the third lap the lead group had been reduced to about 10 women. The predicted acceleration by the leaders on the final hill-climb, though slight, was hard to match and shattered the group of 10 into a break of 3 riders, followed by 3 individual riders, followed by a chase of 4 including Marina and Hannah. Marina would finish 8^th in A’s, while Hannah would finish 2^nd in B’s.

The Bulldogs will take their fishnet gauze next week to West Point, New York—home of the storied Army Hill Climb Time Trial, campus criterium, and a new road race. Enjoy the weather everyone!

Army, RISD and Easterns Race Preview by Adam

noreply@blogger.com (Yale Cycling) — Mon, 08 Apr 2013 20:40:00 +0000

The upside of flatting on lap one of my 50 mile race yesterday and having a long bus ride home is that I’m actually a functional human being this morning, so I find myself with plenty of energy to write. Everybody should be pumped about the upcoming three race weekends: the Army Spring Classic, RISD’s Rhode Race, and Easterns at PSU.

The Army Spring Classic is, well, a Classic! If you’ve never been out to the Catskills of NY, wherein the West Point campus is nestled, the scenery of the area alone is reason enough to go to this race. The races are fantastic. The ITT is a brutal 3 mile uphill drag called Stony Lonesome. The mere name conjures visions of glorious struggle against the mountain. I haven’t done the Harriman Road Race, but conference director Joe Kopena has often been heard to remark this is one of his favorite races in New England. Also there are military Humvees for pace cars—and how cool is that? Finally the criterium is right around West Point’s stadium on campus, and the entire course is visible from the staging/start area. Its one of the most spectator friendly crit courses I can think of in the ECCC.

The Rhode Race hosted by RISD and Brown in Providence, RI is a new edition to the ECCC calendar. This may be the race weekend I’m most looking forward to mainly because of the road race that is planned. It has all the makings of a classic ala the Spring Classics of Europe. Dirt sections! Punchy climbs! Crosswinds! Did I mention dirt sections! Up to 2 miles of dirt road per lap! If we’re lucky, it will have rained at some point and we’ll have mud. If not, it’ll be dry and dusty as all hell. Either way—it should be an excellent, highly entertaining race. I think this course will favor breakaway specialists and rolleurs. Like Paris-Roubaix or the other classics of Belgium that features cobbled sectors, look for separations to occur in the dirt sections as racers slow or get tangled up behind mishaps. Doesn’t that sound fun? This isn’t a race to miss!

The only thing I have to say about Easterns at PSU is Black Mo! More formally, the Black Moshannon Road Race is a 21.4 mile loop that features a 5 mile climb for nearly 1,500 ft. of elevation gain. This may be the most epic race in the ECCC. Regardless of where you finish and in what field, you will have stories to tell about this race. Easterns is still three weeks away too, so you’ve still got time to hone your climbing form, and in the case of the A racers, starve another pound or two off of your emaciated bodies. W/kg ratio, ladies and gents! Just kidding, we are all nutritionally sane people here at Yale… if eating our weight in Peanut Butter & Co and Chabaso Bread on race weekends equates to sanity.

If your schedule is slammed this time of year, both Army and RISD/Brown are a mere 1.5 hours away, so travel times are brief! In summary, come and race your bike!

Yes, this is the profile of the Penn State Easterns circuit race.

We've been looking forward to it all season.

On Crashing

noreply@blogger.com (NAG) — Mon, 08 Apr 2013 16:20:00 +0000

We all risk crashing when we ride and race our bikes, which means that each of us given long enough will find herself on the tarmac. Luckily, most crashes are not serious. Yet despite this fact, crashes induce a vivid fear in many casual riders and racers alike. Why? I can think of several reasons.

First, crashes bluntly remind us of our own limits. The bicycle normally extends our physical possibilities. It allows us to float about the world on a cushion of air a tire-width above the obdurate surface of the earth. Crashing attacks the invincibility that a well-tuned bicycle naturally inspires in its rider.

Second, a cyclist experiences riding as a harmonious equilibrium under normal circumstances. The feeling of an effortless, unsolicited companionship between a rider and her instrument constitutes one of the peculiar joys of riding a bike. Crashing not only disrupts that companionship, but it also threatens the possibility of a harmonious interaction with one’s bicycle in the first place. Who hasn’t crashed in a race and taken some time to regain the confidence to take corners at speed?

Both these fears, while natural and understandable, rest on a mistaken notion of risk. It conceives of crashing as a fixed and unchanging feature of cycling, when in fact we can exercise far more control over how and whether we crash at all. As cyclists, we take certain fixed constants of the world as our starting point, and then we push back against those constants where we can. We can choose out aggressive or modest we wish to be. Often we claw out a little more ground for ourselves, and sometimes the world claws it back. Nonetheless, we have substantial control over when, how quickly, and where we try to conform the world to our will. And when we think about the risks we take in this subjective, agent-centered manner, crashing becomes a feature internal to an activity we influence rather than a malevolent force beyond our control.

Thinking of risk as a choice rather than an imposition requires us to take responsibility for our riding. Taking responsibility becomes particularly important in group situations where your risks impose dangers not only upon yourself but others as well. At the same time, taking responsibility warrants us to take pride in the risks we choose.

More practically, most crashes are preventable. As the occasion for this post, I had the misfortune this weekend of clipping a pedal on a turn, which resulted from a misjudgment of my lean angle. Another frequent source of crashes is a touch of wheels with a fellow rider. Keep your wheels from overlapping with others, and stay out of riders’ “blind spots” whenever possible. A final, general cause is panic. Stay on your machine. Anticipate the actions of other riders. Breathe.

There are better and worse ways to crash on your bike, which you can practice on sand or grass. Keep your hands on your bars and try to roll out of the fall as much as possible. Let your body take the blow of the impact rather than your limbs. You still might suffer some road rash or torn lycra, but you’ll walk away with out more serious injury.

Crashing is a feature but not a fixed constant of cycling. By changing our attitudes toward crashing, we can better respond when they present themselves and prevent them from happening at all.

The blog returns! Five weeks' worth of race reports

noreply@blogger.com (Yale Cycling) — Wed, 03 Apr 2013 14:14:00 +0000

MIT X-Pot:

The MIT crew pulled off a real coup this weekend with their latest scheme to utterly decimate and demoralize the ECCC—the X-Pot 3.0. Saturday and Sunday featured a full complement of races, beginning with a savage uphill ITT and concluding with the soul-crushing, call-your-mother-and-cry inducing, aptly named Purgatory Road Race. Nevertheless, the Bulldogs came out swinging to finish fourth on the weekend and move up to third in the ECCC standings.

Saturday morning commenced with the 5 mile hill climb ITT, which featured several serious climbs in the first half followed by a set of rollers and a poorly-marked finish line. First off were our D men, Brandon and Connor, whose firstrace weekend would turn out to be a real doozy. Both finished solidly in the top twenty. Great job, guys! Julia and new rider Kelsey Lynd were next, making it look easy: Kelsey took third in Cs, while Julia decided that 5 miles wasn't long enough and tacked an extra hour of riding onto her race, finishing 16th.

The next batch were the A, B, and C men. Matt put in his usual excellent performance, taking a very impressive 6th, followed by Spencer in 32nd. Returning to racing after a few weekends off, Adam's legs were plenty fresh to put in the massive effort required to finish 14th in Bs, netting him his first points of the season. No doubt there are many more to come! Danny S finished off the set, finishing solidly in the middle of the pack.

Last off were the A/B women: Marina and Erica set off first, finishing 9th and 10th respectively in As. In Bs, new racer Anna floats-up-hills Chase won her first race of the season and provided much-appreciated guidance to her teammates on when to sprint. This allowed Colleen, newly upgraded from Cs, to snag 4th place (upgrading was clearly the right move!) followed by Krysten in 10th and Hannah in 12th. Way to bring home the points, ladies!

After all our riders had successfully returned from the ITT, we relocated to the "criterium" course...

MIT probably sent their minions to scour every single intersection in eastern Massachusetts to find the most ridiculous, outrageous criterium course imaginable. In their hubris, MIT failed the most basic test for organizing a criterium—organize a criterium. Not a circuit race, a criterium. For those of you unfamiliar with the minutiae of USA Cycling’s regulations on this matter, a criterium course must specifically be less than one mile in length. And usually they’re flat. Save the 8% gradients for the road race.

Anyways, the course comprised two 180-degree turns—one off-camber, the other after a steep and ill-paved downhill—and ridiculous finishing climb replete with melting snow and a maximum gradient of 15% (!?!?!). As usual, men's D were the unfortunate guinea pigs on this course, and the race shattered pretty early, forcing the officials to pull & place all but six riders. Brandon and Connor both put in heroic efforts, finishing 19th and 22nd respectively. Men's C was a similar tale, with nearly two-thirds of the 80-man field pulled. Danny continued to put in a solid performance, finishing comfortably mid-pack.

In women's C, Julia and Kelsey both sat comfortably in the lead pack for the first several laps, until Julia's front derailleur refused to cooperate and she was forced to pull herself. With a few laps to go, a UVM rider soloed off the front while Kelsey stayed with the main pack, winning the field sprint and finishing second overall.

In men's B, a few small groups got away early but Adam hung with the main field, shedding riders every couple of laps on the climb. All but a couple of riders were reined in before the final sprint up the climb, where Adam finished 12th overall. Well done, T-Rex!

The MIT women dominated the start line of the Women’s A/B crit, but the Elis were fired up and ready to go. The technical corners and pothole-ridden descent put the Bulldogs' handling skills to the test, but all our riders remembered to brake early, countersteer, and pick smooth lines through the turns. Erica put in an Amazonian effort to narrowly avoid getting lapped, placing 14^th, while our “Killer Bs” (Krysten, Colleen, and Hannah) finished 4^th, 9^th and 10^th respectively.

Matt, Nick, and Spencer toed the line for the Men’s A race shortly after the conclusion of the women’s race. After some early attacking, a group of four riders made the decisive move of the day away in the lull after the first prime. Spencer put in a Herculean amount of work at the front of the field to control the gap for Matt, while Nick yo-yoed throughout the pack and rued his lack of a proper warm up. Matt unleashed a great turn of speed to take second in the field sprint for 6^th place. Spencer took 12^th and Nick, having led out the sprinters into the final turn, rolled in near the back of the field.

The Bulldogs arose Sunday morning for the second Team Time Trial of the season. Teams would complete two laps of a five-mile course, and pre-race inspection revealed a lumpy profile. Still, the lack of wind and generally smooth pavement made for plenty of fast racing. First up was the Men’s A squad featuring Adam, Matt, Nick, and Spencer. The A-Team went out hard from the gun—perhaps too hard—and despite a series of small mistakes and lack of pacing, they netted an impressive 6^th place. Meanwhile, Connor and Danny formed a two-man C team, working hard for 16th.

The Women’s A and B squads were the last to leave the start line. The A women (Erica, Marina, Krysten, and Anna) put in a massive turn of work to finish second after the defending national champions! The B squad (Colleen, Kelsey, Julia, and Hannah) showed some great form and finished first in Women’s B. Great work ladies!

As the wind began to stir the flagpole over Sutton Middle School and clouds obscured the morning sun, a pall fell on the exhausted riders. The Purgatory Road Race loomed large in the thoughts of ECCC riders and the Bulldogs retired to their lawn chairs and vehicles to nap, eat, and begin the familiar ritual of pinning numbers.

The course presented the first proper “road race” of the road season. Riders would complete various laps of an 11-mile course featuring some early risers, a fast descent, a long death march into the wind, and finally a steep half-mile climb to the finish averaging 7%. Connor and Danny first took to the road in the D and C fields respectively with plans to stay with the leaders and out of the wind. Despite a remarkable effort, Connor ran out of GU early in the race and settled into a manageable rhythm to finish his first ever road race. Asked to describe the hill, he said it was "... big." Indeed. Great work Connor!!

Amid the gloom and doom of the road race, Danny Schlingman's performance stood out as a brilliant spot of resilience. After bonking hard on the third lap and nearly falling off his bike (?), Danny hiked up the final climb to put his front tire over the line. While he finished nearly 20 minutes down on the next rider ahead of him, Danny refused to quit in the midst of utter exhaustion and took the cake as our most tenacious racer of the weekend. Next time you think about pulling out, think twice. Way to go Danny!!!!

The Men’s A field departed a little after 2 pm to complete six laps of the course followed closely by Men's B and the Women’s A/B races, each to complete five laps. The Yalies were in full force in the women's race, with a full squad of seven ladies at the start line. As anticipated, the usual suspects splintered the race by the second lap, and the majority of riders were pulled after four. Erica suffered through five, working together with a UNH rider for most of the race to finish 9^th and maintaining her consistent string of top-10 finishes (beating an unfortunately-bonked Katie Quinn), followed by Marina in 13th. The B field suffered enormously and all but two riders were pulled and placed (“P&P’ed”) or did not finish (“DNF’ed”). Despite the challenge, newly-minted B Kelsey, Krysten, Anna, Colleen, and Hannah all finished in the top 10. Particular shout-outs to Kelsey for her mid-weekend upgrade and an amazing third place finish, as well as to Krysten, whose consistently impressive results have put her at the top of the women's B leaderboard. Great stuff!

In men's B, an attack in lap 2 in the rollers and headwinds on the course before the main climb put Adam in dire straits, and he found himself separated on the climb. After chasing to get back for most of the third lap, he eventually made his way onto a chase group. After a few minutes' recovery, the headwind on the straightaway prompted him to consider the final two laps a training ride. Nevertheless, he finished solidly mid-pack. Nice work, Adam!

As is typical for a long road race, the Men’s A field decided to let an overeager McGill rider hang out to dry for the first two laps. With Spencer suffering from his efforts in the criterium yesterday, Nick stayed up front to work for Matt’s chances. On the second ascent of the climb, MIT launched a powerful attack that crystallized into a group of seven leaders including Nick. Several more riders the danger and bridged up to the group, and Matt smartly followed wheels to move up with the leaders. Matt tucked into the back of the group while Nick and several other riders with teammates in the group worked to keep the pace high, and the leaders’ advantage hovered around a minute for the remainder of the third lap. Further attacks on the fourth ascent whittled the leading group down to 7-9 riders, but Matt shifted into offense and danced a merry jig on the pedals to join them. Farther back, Nick settled into a group of four riders and played defense to preserve Matt’s advantage. It was now every Bulldog for himself, and Matt and Nick pushed themselves hard to the finish. Matt barely missed out on his fourth sixth place finish of the weekend for 7^th, while Nick cracked the top-10. Spencer chose to ride within himself and finished 25^th on the day.

One heck of a weekend. Next time, Week 6 takes our merry band of spandex warriors to Pennsylvania for the “Shippensburg Scurry,” featuring the “Horse Killer Road Race.” I hope no animals will be harmed in the course ofracing. Over and out.

Bard:

The ECCC took a breather this week and marked the halfway point of the road season with a half-race weekend at Bard College in lovely Annandale-on-Hudson. Nonetheless, time off from collegiate racing doesn’t mean time off, and the Bulldogs spent their Saturdays racing, training, and actively recovering.

Two men’s A riders—Nick and Spencer—chose to test their legs at an amateur ¾ race just up the river. Blustery and frigid conditions presented a significant challenge to riders at the Trooper Brinkerhoff Memorial Race Series, particularly given the exposure of the race’s northbound leg to harsh crosswinds. The race comprised four laps of a 12-mile circuit containing a short power climb and two long straightaways marred by aforementioned crosswinds. The Bulldogs concentrated in the early minutes on maintaining position in the field to both respond to attacks and avoid the general sketchiness in the group behind. Despite their best efforts, by the second lap, a strong group of three riders leapt away and worked up a 45 second advantage on the field, with several chasers in the no-mans land in between. Sensing that this might be a wining break, Nick jumped away on the third lap with two other riders and over the next twelve miles bridged up to the leaders. The group of six worked smoothly enough until the final ascent, which reduced it to four. By the last two kilometers, the field was nowhere in sight for the breakaway and it was every man for himself. Nick put in the first attack just outside the flame rouge over the course’s final rise, opened a 5 second gap on the leaders through the final turn, and held on for the win.

Back in the group, Spencer worked tirelessly to shut down bridging efforts from the field. He eventually wearied of the tedium and turned the tables on his counterparts with a bridging effort of his own. The field, perhaps irked by such a show of defiance, caught him with 2K to go. Undaunted, Spencer nonetheless took second in the field sprint for sixth place. Way to go Bulldogs!

After some well-deserved rest, the Bulldogs decamped Sunday morning to the quaint and homey campus of Bard College. Mischievous organizers had designed a punishing course complete with an uphill finishing kick, two downhill 90-degree turns, and yesterday’s brutal crosswinds to boot. The Men’s D race exploded immediately thanks to the strong winds and left a select group of 10 in the front with a trail of stragglers in their wake. In the midst of the wreckage, Brandon and David found one another and worked together until the end. Congrats to Brandon on navigating his first collegiate race, and we’re looking forward to seeing more from his SuperSix Evo in the future!

The wind would continue to shape the day’s races, and from the go the Men’s C raceshattered into a wild, blooming confusion of colorful jerseys and labored breathing. An RPI rider soloed off the front for much of the race and finished over a minute up on the leaders (dirty sandbagger). Jimmy, fresh off his strong showing in the Philly D race, made the early selection on the course’s short power climb and concealed himself in the pack, while Danny found himself off the back and worked hard for a solid midfield finish. Not content to dilly-dally in the pack, Jimmy snapped up second place in the race’s second prime. Winded from his effort, Jimmy couldn’t quite put down the power he wanted in the final sprint and rolled in 12th, with an invaluable lesson learned.

In the women’s races, Yale riders fell victim again to Bard’s deceptive parcours. In Women’s C, Elif suffered enough to earn a wry grin from the sternest Belgian hardmen and rode much of the race solo. In the A/B race, Krysten labored hard to stay with the leaders and rolled in 4^th in the B field. Behind her, Hannah finished 6^th on the day.

The Men’s A race brought together the quattro amici of the men’s TTT squad—Andy, Spencer, Matt, and Nick—for the first time this season. With a smaller usual field and several of the usual suspects absent, the race was truly anyone’s game. Matt and Spencer quickly moved into position to mark moves in hopes of escaping, but the combined efforts of Dartmouth and Pittsburg kept the initial laps together. After 6 laps, a move containing UVM, Dartmouth, KMS (baby faced high school cyclists!), and Spencer got clear. The group contained enough firepower to open a substantial gap over the field, and with five to go the leaders had lapped the still further reduced field of 15 or so riders. With the two groups rejoined, the race settled down until the final lap when a Pitt rider attacked, followed closely by Dartmouth leader. Matt turned a pedal in anger at the front of the group to rescue Spencer’s changes for victory, and while ultimately unsuccessful, Spencer came in a fantastic third place! An exhausted Matt crossed the line in 16^th place.

On the other end of the action, Andy struggled courageously in the vicious opening laps and chose to conserve his strength for later in the season. Nick came frustratingly close to a joining a group of six chasers and was pulled halfway through the race.

Nonetheless, the Men’s A squad earned their first podium of the year, and we certainly believe it won’t be the last.

Philly:

Bulldog Cycling journeyed to Philadelphia this weekend for the Philly Phlyer—a race that has become a fixture of the early season in recent years. Saturday’s team time trial (TTT or “triple-T” as those weirdos from MIT call it…) and circuit race took place at lovely Fairmount Park next to the “Please Touch” Children’s Museum, whose name always inspires a giggle or two from the 20-somethings. Despite well-maintained roads, the morning began with apprehension at the forecasted bad weather and the gloomy skies portended worse to come.

The 14-mile TTT course took riders from the park down to the Schuylkill River, twice up and down the adjacent road, and then up a short but nasty climb to the finishing area. A slight northern wind meant headwinds up the river and tailwinds while returning. The women’s A squad pulled out an impressive second-place performance with especially strong performances by Erica and Marina. The C men fought tenaciously for 7^th place as Jimmy and Danny Schlingman worked together to tame the elements. The Men’s A team for their part finished a surprising 5^th after a virtual non-warm up and panicked start. While the other squads warmed up on the trainers, the Men’s A boys decided on a more leisurely course preview and traded some beautiful views of the Philadelphia Museum of Art for an actual warm up.

The precipitation offered its first tease around 10 am innocently enough—sparse, dry snowfall analogized by sometime Yale men’s captain Eric Fischer (visiting from his new home at William & Mary) to “raining Dippin’ Dots®”. The weather behaved throughout the combined Men’s D race, where Yale neo-cyclist Jimmy Martenson stayed esconsced in the front group to take 9^th place as the massive field shattered around him. By the time of Yale’s next race, however, conditions had deteriorated with freezing rain and occasional hail. As his fellow racers whimpered and talk of withdrawal spread through the Men’s C field, Dan Spakowicz found the fortitude to push through the awful wintry mix and finish 13^th on the day. Great work Dan! Danny Schlingman worked hard to stay with the leaders, but found himself the victim of a split in the field thanks to the challenging winds and punchy climbs of the “Schuylkill Scrambler.”

The women C, B, and A teams took to the road just after noon, at which time the rain had stopped. Julia finished 13^th on the day after riding a smart race in the bunch. The women’s A/B field split on the first lap after several of the “heads of state” attacked on the main climb. While the rest of the group worked their best to reel them back, the winner had amassed a seven minute advantage by the end of the five laps. Marina and Erica finished 9^th and 13^th respectively in As while Hannah finished 7^th in Bs.

The snow, hail, and freezing rain returned just in time for the start of the Men’s A race, and while conference organizers had promised to cut laps if conditions deteriorated the mood ranged from tense to resigned at staging. The first lap saw Nick and a UVM rider attack from the gun in a move that lasted roughly until the base of the climb. From then on, leaders attempted various probing attacks, but the field was not keen to risk a breakaway with the possibility that the race could be suddenly shortened. After two treacherous descents on slippery paint, at least one crash in the field, and a sudden dip in temperatures causing the wet roads to freeze, the Men’s A field decided to neutralize therace after two laps of racing. Given the risks to rider safety and sheer awfulness of the conditions, officials decided to cancel the race with no results. All would live to fight another day.

After some well-deserved dinner (and not-so-well-deserved hassle with the bill), Yale set off Sunday for a day of criterium racing on the Temple University campus. The deceptively simple course geography belied a nasty uphill finishing drag, complete with a headwind to boot. In addition, two sets of tram tracks and dubious pavement in multiple sections of the course increased the usual risk of flats and accidents.

Conditions were improved over Saturday’s brutal storm, but clouds and wind throughout the day blunted the uptick. The men’s D race saw multiple splits in the field, but Jimmy again rode a strong and skillful race to finish in the top-10. Upgrade in the near future? As Gandhi once said, the only way to go is up. Amogh continued to hone his skills in the Men’s Intro category, finishing 12^th but winning the competition for best pedaling form. In Cs, the Dans continued their consistent work. Dan Spakowicz navigated several splits in the field and finished safely in the lead group, while Danny Schlingman took third in the first prime of the race to score his first points for Bulldog Cycling. Good work chaps!

In the women’s races, Julia continued her excellent run to win the Women’s C field sprint in dramatic fashion. Great job Julia! Despite a mid-race crash that nearly ended her race, Julia rallied to unleash a massive seated sprint that dashed her competitors’ hopes on the rocky shoals of disappointment. The A/B race began with bad luck when a start line crash trapped Marina behind the leaders and forced her to chase for most of the race. While Hannah attempted to pace her back into the lead group, it was alas of no avail and Marina ended up in the third group on the day. While a frustrating criterium debut, we’re confident the women’s A field doesn’t know what’ll hit them in two weeks...

Erica for her part made the lead group and worked hard to maintain her position in the lead group of 15. Despite numerous unsuccessful attempts by Katie Quinn to break the will of the field, the group held together and Erica took an impressive sixth on the day. Behind her, Hannah rode a solid tempo to finish 9^th in Bs. Awesome work!

By the end of the day, the men’s A field was rarin’ for some hard racin’ after yesterday’s frustrations. Unfortunately, Spencer Gilbert continued a string of bad luck for the Bulldogs and flatted on the first neutral lap of the course. Thanks to the fortuitous location of team mates, however, a quick wheel change meant he was ready in a jiffy. The early laps came fast and furious as riders sprinted out of corners, and Nick did his best to move his team leader Spencer up into the top-15. Riders bounced about over potholes, chip seal, and tram tracks, and the tight corners exaggerated the accordion effect in the bunch. A breakaway carved out a 10 second advantage by the end of the race, but the strong headwind through the finish gave the field a stronger hand to play. Nick for his part flatted midway and took a free lap after an errant staple found its way into his rear tire. In the end, Nick ended up on the wrong side of a split in the field and was dropped with two laps to go, while Spencer needed to hit the brakes in the final turn and lost valuable ground for his sprint. While a consensus emerged between the two on mediocre sensations and nerves during the race, the men’s A team will look to hone its form over the next few weeks with an eye toward those field and group sprints.

Columbia/Stevens:

The Yale team returned to Grant's Tomb on Saturday for an exciting day of criterium action. The famous five-corner course took riders out on to the mean streets of New York through two 90-degree left-hand corners, up a sharp uphill kick back into the park, and around a sweeping 180-degree left hand turn into the long uphill drag to the finish line. Noticeable winds out of the northwest made for challenging racing, but the otherwise balmy weather meant the pale legs of riders saw their first sun in several months.

The day's racing began with the amateur events. Re-frozen melt from the recent snowstorm made for treacherous conditions in the early morning events, and despite the race organizer's claims to the contrary patches of black ice still dotted the course. Matt Lloyd-Thomas, eager to test his mettle after last week's showing, rode a solid and attentiverace in the Cat. 4 event, coming in 10th. In the Cat 3 race, Spencer and Nick missed their start after organizers decided on a whim to move the start up in the schedule. True to form, Spencer chased furiously for 20 minutes until organizers pulled him from the race, while Nick opted to maintain his composure and turn his attention toward the collegiate races.

The collegiate races commenced with some newcomers to the Yale team. Amogh Sivarapatna gritted his teeth in his collegiate debut, while in Men's D, Will Redden and Adam Simpson put on a fireworks display for the first third of therace before missing the decisive split (keep up that training guys!). In the women's C race, Julia (fresh off her dominant performance in Intros last week) and Colleen hung together to finish in the pack.

In Men's C, Danny and Travis endured bad luck. Danny found himself gapped off the back after Princeton and Harvard set an aggressive pace at the business end of the field, while Travis suffered mechanical difficulties with his headset midway through the race.

Yale's fortunes took a turn for the awesome in the Men's B race. Matt Lloyd-Thomas attacked from the gun in a dashing display of panache, gaining a maximum advantage of 8-10 seconds over the field. Unfortunately, the strong headwind on the backside of the course made a solo effort a difficult one and Matt eventually rejoined the field. Despite concerns from spectators that he had burnt most of his matches in his early heroics, Matt put in a great turn of speed in the final sprint to win on the day. Great work Matt!

Bulldog Cycling's talented women's team lined up for the Women's A/B race. After their dominant performance last week in the B race, Marina, Krysten, and Hannah were riders to mark in the women's peloton, and Erica's consistent results meant she herself was not to be underestimated. True to form, Marina took first in the Women's B race, Erica finished in the top 10 of the women's A field, and Hannah hung on valiantly to bring home the omnium points. Sadly, another rider touched wheels with Krysten in the final sprint and crashed her out of contention.

The Men's A field lined up for the final race of the day. Robin Carpenter, the ECCC's baby-faced wünderkind and winner of the P/1/2 race earlier in the day, was the undisputed favorite and was spotted making silly faces at the start line (secret pre-race relaxation exercises?). The first 15 minutes were a blistering combination of cursing, labored breathing, and grimacing as riders struggled to make it through the early pyrotechnics. Spencer moved smartly into the top third of the field, while Nick found himself working hard at the back of the field in his first criterium in nearly 8 months. Racing calmed down when the field let a group of 6 riders go clear, but with a few laps to go it was gruppo compacto and things were lined up for a field sprint. Carpenter took the sprint ahead of Killington's Ansel Dickey, while Spencer finished in the top 15 and Nick, content to leave the argy-bargy to the sprinters, rolled across the line fifteen seconds later.

After a short sleep thanks to daylight savings time, we relocated to Mountainside, NJ for the first proper road race of the season. The course consisted of a 6.2 mile loop through Watchung Reservation and was variously described as consisting of 15% grades and 70% descents. While both were undoubtedly exaggerations, the course was certainly fast but hilly with no clear advantage to climbers or descenders.

In the frigid sub-freezing temperatures of the early morning, our first racers to brave the couse were Adam S in a large combined men's D (3 laps) and Amogh in men's intro (2 laps). Both races quickly shattered, and the men worked hard to finish 24th and 12th respectively. Colleen and Julia were next in women's C (4 laps). The pack uncharacteristically clung together for the majority of the race (aside from a possibly mis-categorized Penn State woman who was minutes off the front) and, despite a dropped chain, Colleen and Julia finished side by side in the top ten, both snagging some points.

In men's C (4 laps), Travis's persistent mechanical difficulties made for a difficult race, and he and Danny suffered through the hills before being pulled with a lap to go. In men's B (5 laps), Matt continued his domination, riding comfortably in the front of the pack for most of the race until the final sprint. He finished third, keeping him at the top of the men's B leaderboard. Rumor has it there's an upgrade in the works...

In the final race of the day, Spencer and Nick set off with men's A (6 laps) followed by women's A/B (5 laps) who, unsurprisingly, were lapped by the men in their penultimate lap. Spencer managed to get into a 6-man break allowing him to take sixth place in the final sprint, while Nick hung in the main pack chasing down bridging attempts and protecting the break. The neutralization of women's A/B (due to being lapped) allowed the three-woman breakaway a comfortable lead. The main pack finished mostly together, with Marina taking second place in Bs, Krysten fourth (despite her road rash from the previous day), Hannah eighth, and Erica eighth in As.

Thanks to the combined efforts of our racers, Yale finished first in the team omnium for Sunday, and moved into second place in the conference. Great work, team!

Rutgers:

First race report of the season! The 2013 road season kicked off this weekend in not-so-balmy New Jersey at the Rutgers Frozen-Toed Season Opener with a set of amazing results. Four -- count 'em, four -- first-place finishes (three from new Yale riders, no less!) and slew of other top tens. Also a puppy (de rigueur for team Yale). The details:

Saturday kicked off with the laughably short 2.2 mile ITT. Our men's intro riders were first, finishing 8th (Rohan Misra) and 22nd (John Wen) in the largest men's intro field we'd ever seen (a whopping 37 riders). Women's intro rider Julia Schlesinger went off next and, upon return, mentioned in passing that she'd passed three riders, gaining a full minute to finish in second place. Way to go Julia!

The second wave started out with men's A Spencer Gilbert finishing a solid 29th. In men's B, Adam Trexler took 33rd and newbie Matt Lloyd-Thomas WON with a solid seven seconds on the second-place rider. Our men's C team, consisting of three Dans and a Rabbit, were next, finishing 18th (Dan Spakowicz), 21st (Travis Rabbit), 33rd (Danny Schlingman) and 36th (Daniel Del Bosque). Women's B netted us a slew of points with Hannah Garrett in 11th, Krysten never-raced-before Koehn in fourth, and Marina Brown for the win! Well done ladies! And finally, I took 11th in women's A.

We then relocated to the Rutgers campus for the crit (new and improved, now with corners!). Our first race was men's C2, with the Dans & Travis. The race was fast and shattered quickly, with Dan S and Travis working together and sitting comfortably within the main group to finish 18th and 26th respectively (Travis, with an awesome save after going near-horizontal in the final lap), and Danny S and DDB in 38th and 41st.

The start of the intro race was off to a rocky start as John Wen was pushed over in the start line to a chorus of ohhs! but recovered quickly, losing no ground. The large field shattered early and the men learned to work together in small groups. Rohan finished 9th in the field sprint with John not far behind in 23rd. In women's intro, Julia took the wind for four laps and finished an impressive fifth despite pulling her competition for 98% of the race.

In men's B, Matt maintained an excellent position throughout the race, putting in several strong attacks and pushing -- no, driving -- the pace high enough to start spitting riders out the back. No breakaways stuck, and Matt finished in an incredibly impressive 7th place (as well as second in the last prime) after the day's second save from a final-lap-near -crash, followed by Adam in 31st.

With the absence of MIT's formidable and field-lapping Katie Quinn, the women's A/B race miraculously clung together for the entirety of the race, finishing in a field sprint. Krysten rode a smart race and it paid off with her first win, followed by Marina in 5th, Hannah in 12th, and me in 11th in As. Moreover, Krysten racked up a slew of sprint points, snagging points in every prime with two firsts, a second, and a third. Wow! In men's A, Spencer rode an incredibly smart race, staying near the front of the pack and out of the wind to finish 11th.

On Sunday, in the absence of any D riders this weekend, we were able to sleep in to the luxuriously late hour of 6.30. The former cornerless crit course was rebranded as a circuit race and consisted of a gradual climb, fun descent, and windy straightaway through the start-finish line for a whopping 0.9 miles. Needless to say, the initially innocent-looking hill became increasingly painful by the tenth or twentieth iteration. Our tent, erected to protect us from the cold, garnered us some not unexpected heckling from the race announcers.

First up, again, were the C2 men. In a show of remarkable consistency, Dan S bagged his third 18th of the weekend (apparently also his former soccer jersey number), followed by DDB in 32nd and Danny S in 35th. (Travis bowed out due to an unhappy ankle from the almost-crash in the previous day's crit.) In men's intro, Rohan seemed to be getting bored, easily finishing in 7th with John in 14th.

We were joined for the day by Colleen Feriod to represent in the women's C race. With riders lapped multiple times, the race was incredibly confusing for spectators to follow, and Colleen---despite a dropped chain!---finished 11th, scoring us some team points. Nice work!

In women's intro, Julia internalized her experience from the previous day and stayed out of the wind for most of the race in a five-woman lead group, sprinting easily to a first-place finish. Makin' it look easy, Julia!

Men's B was, as usual, a fast and fairly cohesive race with several attack attempts, some led by Matt, who replicated his previous day's result to finish again in 7th, with Adam in 38th.

Unlike the previous day, women's A/B saw several splits in the field, some of which (eventually) stuck. Marina floats-up-hills Brown stayed with the lead group for the entire race to finish 3rd in Bs, with Krysten in 8th, Hannah in 13th, and Erica 11th in As. In men's B, Spencer was looking strong and in excellent position until an unfortunate flat removed him from contention.

Week 3: Philly

noreply@blogger.com (Yale Cycling) — Tue, 20 Mar 2012 01:37:00 +0000

This weekend 16 Yalies descended upon the city of brotherly love to bring the pain to the ECCC and extend our lead in the chase for the Ivy League Championship.

TTT
So it turns out that it is NOT always sunny in Philadelphia. In fact at 5:45 am, it was quite dark.....and chilly. After setting up our own version of Occupy New Haven (a 40'x10' monstrosity of black tentage), our racers had a very brief warm-up before heading out for 2 laps of a 6.3 mile time trial course. The course consisted of a flat, technical 'upper' section which lead to a short downhill which was followed by a 2 mile flat stretch to a 180 degree turnaround. After the turnaround, it was 2 miles back and then up a short kicker, around a roundabout and then down Philly's version of the Champs-Elysees. Then repeat.

First off were our Women's C (Rachel K. and Kristin K.) who took 1st and intimidated all other Women's C teams from even starting the race! Next Men's A (Dan B., Jelle, Ian, and Nicky G.). Decked out in matching bikes, skinsuits, and aero helmets, our men lined up for the race practically begging to be heckled (haters gonna hate). However, unlike the Yale Men's A team of yesteryear, this year's incarnation was resolved to place somewhere off the bottom of results list. When the results were finally posted, our men placed 3rd out of 12 teams with a time of 27:39!! and only 1 second off of 2nd place. Next up, Adam, Brian, and Nathan flew the flag in Men's C. In a stacked field of teams, our men came in 4th in Division 2 with a time of 31:52, bringing home some team points! Next on course were Alli, Erica, Hannnah, and Marina in Women's A. Relying upon the familiarity they gained from riding with each other throughout the winter, our ladies rode awesomely, finishing 2nd and only 35 seconds behind MIT! Nasty, nasty Nationals Points! Last on course, but first in our hearts, were our Women's B riders: Ashley, Sonya, and Elif. Though they won the ultimate race before the race (scaring away potential competitors with their pro-ness), our ladies raced against the clock....and dominated it. To summarize: our women went 2nd, 1st, 1st.

CIRCUIT
Unchanged from last year, the circuit course consisted of the TT course with an addition of a 1/2 climb (and descent). First up was Nathan in Men's D. After sitting in the first lap and observing the field from atop the lookout perch on his bike (created from a lowered, but still stilt-like position of his handlebars), Nathan picked his attack point on the uphill 'kicker' coming into the roundabout and hammered like a mad man down the finish stretch to come in 3rd!

Next, our C Men attacked their 75-man field for 3 laps of the 6.3 mile circuit. Positioning himself perfectly throughout the race, Adam finished with the pack and took home 9th in Division 2. Brian rode in the first chase group for the first lap and solo'd the second lap like a boss to come in 18th in Division 2.

Next on course was our formidable team of Women's C's. After enduring a week of hill repeats that saw her finally climb and attack out of the saddle, Sonya broke out her angry eyes and took 10 lbs of flesh out of the field, attacking brutally and mercilessly at the base of the final climb, building a 75 meter gap that she would hold through the finish for our team's first win of the year!! Not content for the team to simply take the top step of the podium, Marina, Elif, and Rachel continued the assault the field to take 9th, 12th, and 13th, respectively.

In Women's Intro, Kristin continued to polish her form and showed that racing is the perfect recipe for fitness building finishing 6th!

Nicky G was next up on course, racing 4 laps of the course in Men's B. In a race that saw numerous failed attempts at breakaways, the race came into the final climb gruppo compacto. Though he rode at the front of the peloton for the duration of race, Nick got boxed in as the accelerations started and was unable to unleash his sprint until the eventual winners escaped, finishing with the pack in 23rd.

In Women's A/B, the field broke up into approximately 6 groups within the first of four laps. Anxious to relive the glory of their TTT's, Alli and Erica rode together and Ashley and Hannah rode together. Both duos would finish consecutively with Erica and Alli in 6th and 7th in A's and Ashley and Hannah in 15th and 16th in B's.

Last up, the 57-man Men's A field and 5 laps of the circuit. In a race marked by ridiculously bad bike handling and 3 big crashes, Dan and Ian went down in an inexplicable wreck when a rider attacked a hay bail with his bike and took down nearly 1/3 of the field. After hearing the crash, the peloton predictably attacked, trying to definitively cut the field down dramatically. Dan B. burnt every match in his proverbial matchbook and eventually TT'd back onto the peloton after approximately 5 miles of chasing. Ian, who was positioned directly behind the kamikaze, unprovoked hay-attacker, found himself stuck in the pile up and was not able to bridge back on. Though Dan made it back into the group, his view from the back (particularly the view dangling 10-40 meters off the back of the peloton) would become a theme of his day as he would be neither a helpful teammate to Jelle nor relevant at all in the race (except for being that guy everyone had to go around as he pack-slid through the peloton on every hill). Jelle rode at the front and responded to the repeated attacks and accelerations. Though he had the legs and positioning to contest the final attack, he (like the rest of the field) was watching the pro riders and the Maillot Jaune and did not immediately respond to Erik Levinsohn's (friend of Yale Cycling) attack on the downhill. Erik would stay away and celebrate in EPIC and appropriate fashion with an awesome win. Jelle and Dan finished in the pack at 20th and 32nd, respectively.

CRITERIUM

In the weekend's final festivities, we drove through some of the more 'colorful' and 'up-and-coming' neighborhoods of Philly to arrive at the 4-corner crit on the Temple campus. Due to construction on campus, last year's course was shortened and a smooth, wide, and relatively flat section of road was substituted with a downhill, pot-hole laden, torn-up section of concrete/dirt/asphalt that ended into a 90 degree corner.

The theme of the day would be crashing and/or bonking.

Men's D: Nathan continued to improve in both his handling and fitness, riding at the front of the field and taking 2nd in the second prime of the day. However, despite the bird's eye view of the course from the crow's nest on his handlebars, Nathan was unable to negotiate the downhill corner on the last lap and decided to test out the durability of his kit and skin with a slide on the wild side. Too bad, because he looked strong!

Men's C: Adam and Brian rode strong and rode together, but were unable to make the split in the field. They rode a crash free race and finished 29th and 33rd in a field of 56.

Women's C: Elif started out the excitement as she decided to try out Nathan's line on corner 2 and made a tasty taco-shape out of her front wheel. Elif, scraped herself up off the pavement like a champ, mounted a pit bike (thanks Dave McCormick) and rode strong the rest of the race. Though Sonya looked poised to back up her victory from Saturday (racking up 3 prime points early), she was also bitten by urge to trade paint with pavement and was body-checked by a sketchy rider into a vertical hay bail on the 3rd corner on the final lap. Marina, on the other hand, rode crash free and led the charge finishing 8th followed by Sonya, Elif, and Rachel in 10th, 12th, and 15th, respectively.

Women's Intro: Riding like a beast (and most importantly riding safe), Kristin finished 8th overall and 5th amongst collegiate racers. Interestingly, according to the results, she also finished 12th. Super awesome.

Men's B: Determined not to get boxed in again, Nick planned his attack nearly perfectly, attempting to bridge to the solo leader going into the final lap. He hammered down the front stretch alone and almost bridged before being swallowed up by the peloton in the 3rd corner in the final lap. Nick pack finished in 25th.

Women's A/B: After a brief reprieve at Columbia, the A/B category was back to its usual shenanigans this week with field detonation on the first lap. In a course that lent itself to breakaways and lapping, the race consisted of 4 smaller sized groups and a handful of solo riders. Given the duration of the race, lapping was constant and lapped riders took advantage by intermittently joining those passing for as long as they could hold. Leading our team, Erica rode in the main chase group and threw down her patented sit-down hammer-fest sprint and edged an F&M rider at the line for 6th place (and 5 additional points!). Alli finished 9th followed by Hannah in 12th in B's (though scored as 12th in A's....a mistake that we hope slides) and Ashley in 13th.

Men's A: Dan/Jelle/Ian: flat/flat/crash. To elaborate.....after having the gall to talk strategy with a co-belligerent from another team prior to the race, Dan B. found himself unable to execute the shared plan of attacking following the second prime as he was so far off the back by the second prime that the officials were no longer ringing the prime bell for his group. In his defense, he flatted on lap 4 in the lead group, but was restarted by the race official into the chase group and was unable to bridge to the leaders due to the ridiculously nasty/unfriendly/brutal pace and his stupidity of not burning his matches immediately to bridge the leaders when he had the legs. Ian actually executed his race plan....well at least the first part of it. After attacking off the start line, Ian's new-found position at the front of the field with the pros got to his head within one lap and he made himself known to the field in dramatic fashion--taking the Nathan-line and adding an additional 10mph onto it. Though certainly not good for re-sale, Ian accomplished an impressive feat: cosmetically damaging nearly every part on the bike without functionally damaging anything. Not to be left out, Jelle also did his best to ride irrelevantly, missing the split in the field and riding 60 minutes at lactic threshold, yet constantly losing ground on the leaders. To top off his spectacular day, Jelle flatted with 4 to go (no free laps). In the end, Dan finished 23rd followed by Jelle in 34th. Let's never talk about this again.

Next week??? Plug your nose, lather on the bronzer, and slick back your hair--we're goin' back to Dirty Jerz.

Week 2: Columbia/Stevens

noreply@blogger.com (Yale Cycling) — Tue, 13 Mar 2012 22:13:00 +0000

First, my most sincere apologies for the delay in providing the titillating details of this past weekend's happenings. My immune system is clearly not strong enough for two consecutive weekends in New Jersey. Alas, I have exhausted the home remedies for the common cold and I have at least this brief reprieve to scribe.

COLUMBIA
Not the country, but the university. In contrast to the last two years installments of the longest running race in the ECCC, this years Columbia criterium included more than two turns. Set in Riverside Park/Grant's Tomb, the course consisted of 4 traditional turns and one fast, downhill, long sweeping turn leading into a very long false-flat uphill finish. First on course were our D Men. Feeling the immense pressure of being the third "Dan" on the team and living up to the remarkable achievements of his namesakes, Mr. Spakowicz savagely attacked the unsuspecting D field and won the first prime sprint handily using a boss-like leadout from Danny Schlingman (the other Dan S. .....yes, this is getting confusing). Spakowicz, Nathan, and Schlingman hung tough on the remaining laps and finished 9th, 19th, and 22nd, respectively, in a field of nearly 40 racers. Next up was Elif, fresh off an upgrade into Women's C. In a race marked my rampant lapping by the leaders, Elif rode the tip of the spear for the first chase group, demonstrating to all that she was clearly fit enough to be in the lead group. Elif ended up 7th overall, finishing 2nd in a furious sit down sprint with her fellow chase group. Alex Hawke made his ECCC and cycling racing debut in Men's Intro's. In addition to looking super pro and physically imposing relative to the rest of his field, Alex rode a fast, crash free race and finished 9th. If nothing else, this edition of the Yale Cycling team could field a formidable basketball team. Building on the fitness and experience she gleaned from racing at Rutgers, Kristin finished 13th in Women's Intro, earning the team some points! In Men's B, Chris Miller rode a very smart race, sitting in the upper half of the peloton throughout. Though worth no points and not documented anywhere in the results, Chris also finished 5th in a prime sprint--a dubious and glorious achievement. In the final sprint Chris was unable to unleash his notorious sprint as he was boxed in and undoubtedly scared to hammer on the Zipp wheels he has on loan from the Industrial Revolution exhibit at the Smithsonian. Next up: Erica Blom in Women's A. In what was undoubtedly the most exciting and conventionally raced Women's A race in the last 2 years, the entire field stayed together the entire race. Pack racing at it's finest. Erica sat in comfortably with the pack and avoided the massive wreck that involved nearly half of the field...

despite photographic evidence that she may have ridden the entire race with her eyes closed. In the end, Erica finished 8th in Women's A and racked up HUGE points for the team!!

Last up for the day was the 60+ man Men's A field. Armed with a tactical plan, Jelle and Dan B. decided to rely upon the larger teams to cover attacks and save energy for the final sprint. In the first (but not last) divergence from the plan, Dan B. went mano a mano with the green jersey wearer in the first prime sprint, beating him and thankfully not burning all of his matches in the process. For the next 40 minutes of the race, Jelle and Dan jockeyed for position in the field and only covering accelerations that involved 8 or more riders. At about the 3/4 mark of the race, the winning move/break or 5 attacked and Jelle and Dan stupidly did not cover the break despite excellent positioning. After more bad last lap tactics, Dan and Jelle started the final sprint apart, and stuck in the middle of the peloton as others started their leadouts on the outside. Once the group fanned out across the road, Dan was able to open up the sprint and finished 13th overall at the line, and 8th in group followed by Jelle in 34th. All in all, it was a safe and fun day of racing.

STEVENS
Despite a plethora of other scenic, beautiful cycling routes in the Northeast, the ECCC made their second visit to Dirty Jerz this season on Sunday to race a 6.2 mile circuit. The course was actually great, with 550ft climbing per lap with two fast and technical descents and a half mile uphill sprint finish. Even though the weatherman predicted a 60 degree temp, our Men's D team started the day with temps in the 30's. Building off their performances the day before, Spakowicz, Nathan and Schlingman tore up 2 laps of the circuit finishing 5th, 6th, and 15th, respectively, and averaging 20mph! In Women's A/B, Erica, Hannah and Ashley dueled a big field for a scheduled 4 laps. Though our race radios were outlawed for this race, we received word that the large climb on the backside of the course detonated the field on the very first lap, leaving riders scrambling to create chase groups of 2-4 fellow racers. Our ladies hammered out a steady pace and were gearing up for the final lap when the race directors prematurely ended the race for all but 10 racers in a decision reportedly based upon "safety". Though unable to support this claim with any kind of reasonable justification (as lapping was not eminent and the field was separated into 1-2 rider groups anyway), the decision was nonetheless final. Erica continued to polish her form, and finished 7th in A's! Ashley finished 12th followed by Hannah. In Women's C, Elif looked methodical, picking off riders lap by lap and finished 9th. In Men's C, B-Tang got gapped early (and is now resolved to keep this from happening again), but rode consistently and time trialed the final lap to finish 14th. In Men's B.....well I am not really sure what happened in this race. What I do know is that Chris defied all reason, tempting fate and his own mortality, and raced his relic wheelset again, railing high-speed downhill corners, cackling at his fellow racers that opted for more reasonable wheelset choices. Judging by the finishing times, I infer that the group stayed together until the final lap and likely blew apart on the steep climb on the backside of the course. The pack of 40 finished in 1-2 second intervals over a minute with Chris in 28th. Lastly, Jelle and Dan shook off the frustration of the previous day's criterium, and started the race dedicated to executing the race plan: Jelle rides at the front of the peloton and marks the top riders and Dan covers ALL attacks. Attacks started early and often. After a 2-man break (including former Yale Captain Eric Fischer) from the start was pulled back at the beginning of the 2nd lap, a dangerous break with representation from the top teams materialized and Dan jumped to join it. Dan (possibly the weakest climber in the entire category) took ridiculously short pulls and did his best to hang in the break. After the break was caught at the end of the 2nd lap, a third attack materialized and Jelle ordered his domestique to join it. Dan hung in that break until it was caught by the peloton at the end of the lap. The counter attack to this break would prove to be the winning move. Jelle initially made the break, but got stuck behind a rider that was gapped and a group of 5 escaped. On the final lap, Jelle attacked on the steep climb and created a chase group with 5 fellow riders. This group stayed away and Jelle sprinted for a 10th place finish followed by Dan in 19th!

This coming weekend marks the first TTT of the season. Stay tuned....

Week 1: Rutgers

noreply@blogger.com (Yale Cycling) — Mon, 05 Mar 2012 16:16:00 +0000

This weekend marked the beginning of the ECCC season and the beginning of our teams march toward Utah for the Collegiate National Championship. Day 1 we put the hurt on a prologue time trial and survived a hilly road race. Day 2 saw us return to the site of last years points race for a race that was mistakenly categorized as a criterium (though in reality was really a series of hill repeats).

--Individual Time Trial---
The season started off with a nearly flat, out-and-back 2.2 mile time trial. We woke up at a very reasonable 4:45am and fought many of the elderly folks on the road at that hour to make it to the site to register, set up camp, and warm up for start times beginning at 7am.

Kept dry by the team trailer and new 10x20 tent, Yale cycling warmed up for the morning TT in style.

The steady rain mixed with the high-speed course promised some interesting high speed turns at the halfway mark. However, in a shocking and uncharacteristic moment of clarity, the Rutgers race organizers decided to modify this years turnaround from an invisible point on the course marked only by a marshal (that failed to identify the turnaround spot to most riders), to a much wider 180 degree turn around a peninsula in the road. On the women's side, Alli racked up massive points in Women's A with a 6th place finish despite failing to don a TT helmet. In Women's B, Ashley Hurst and Hannah Garrett threw down in their first races at B's finishing 7th and 9th, respectively. In a loaded Women's C field, Colleen Feriod finished 17th in her first ever race followed by Sonya Thomas in 20th and Rachel Kurchin in 25th. In Women's Intro, Elif threw down a monster time earning her 3rd (but would have put her mid-pack in C's!) followed by Kristin in 14th. On the Men's A side, Dan saved face and put up a time that he hoped would later excuse a poor crit/hill climb result and finished 10th. Jelle (pronounced "Yell-A" or "Jelly") and Ian (pronounced "Bambino") decided to prove that they were not simply hill climbing billy goats, and put up awesome times finishing 15th and 16th, respectively. In Men's B, Nicky Geiser embodied his inner Tony Martin, finishing 12th. Chris Miller, rocking a set of Zipp Wheels from the Reagan administration, made his return to the ECCC in 20th. In Men's C, Yale was proud to introduce OUR Levinsohn (Jon) to the ECCC. Although he broke the family tradition of sandbagging Men's D for a year and winning by minutes, Jon put up an excellent time in his first race finishing 7th. Adam Trexler, fresh off an upgrade this season to C's, channeled his inner tri-athlete (and questionably legal slammed-forward saddle position) finishing 17th. In Men's D, Will Redden decided to try keeping it rubber-side-down for the entire race and unsurprisingly posted a great time finishing 19th in a big field. Lastly, but not least, Nathan Knapp and Danny Schlingman made their intro into racing in the aptly named Men's Intro category. Despite a formidable stack of steerer tube spacers bringing the bars to eye-level, Nathan ignored the laws of physics and principles of aerodynamics, and ate the competition (and a chestful of air rushing by) to finish 3rd. In a valiant effort to uphold the reputation of "Dan's" on the team, Danny ripped up his first collegiate race finishing 12th.

--Road Race--
In a somewhat exaggerated response to complaints of too few/short road races on the collegiate calendar, the ECCC decided that the first week of March was the perfect time to host the first road race. In the early session on the road, our Men's C team set out to tackle 3 laps of the 13 mile course marked by sections of wet, oiled asphalt and corners with substantial standing water. Proving that his time on the trainer was worthwhile, Adam ripped apart his drivetrain using nothing more than his legs. One destroyed derailleur hanger and mangled cassette later, Adam's day was done. Jon hung tough with the front group for the first 2 laps of the race, but ultimately elected to cut his day short in lieu of increasing sketchiness from fellow racers and a slew of crashes along the way. In Men's D, Will quickly became bored of riding up right and decided to add a horizontal element to his race. Aside from adding some battle scars to his steed and some oil/dirt from the road to his kit, Will was ok and ready to ride again the next day. Rounding out the Men, Danny and Nathan rode smart together finishing their lap only seconds apart in 18th and 20th, respectively. On the Women's side, the Women's C field shattered immediately after the start. Sonya rode with the first chase group for a lap before attempting a solo bridge on the second lap. Although she stayed away for 12 miles, she was ultimately brought back at the end, finishing 19th. Colleen and Rachel found themselves feeling strong, but without fellow racers to work with. Both rode the 26 mile race essentially solo (inevitably getting some excellent training) finishing 23rd and 28th, respectively. In a Women's Intro field separated only by 5 minutes, Elif backed up her ITT time finishing in 5th followed by Kristin in 17th. Next on course were the Men's A, B and Women's A/B fields. In a Men's A field of 61 racers, the team decided to ride for Jelle as our protected rider.

Men's A team starting in the mud, ready for a blistering start to the 65 mile road race.

After a roubaix-inspired dirt road start, the Men's A field crushed it for the first 20 minutes, spitting rider after rider out the back of the peloton. Shortly after the halfway point of the first lap, Dan took a flyer in an attempt to further string out the field. Joined by a UVM rider, they opened up a 45 second gap heading into the 2-mile climb. However, the breakaway (and glory) was short-lived and was caught at the end of the climb, giving rise to a counter-attack that rapidly shed riders dangling off the back. The peloton held together until the beginning of the 4th time up the climb, when attacks and counter attacks detonated the field. Ian covered multiple moves at the front giving Jelle the legs to make the second chase group. The field remained shattered coming into the line on the 5th and final lap. Jelle came up to the finish climb in 2nd position in his group and then crushed the souls of his fellow chase group, winning the sprint and finishing 10th. Despite bleeding his energy reserves covering moves, Ian finished a very respectable 21st followed by Dan in 35th. In the Men's B race, Nick and Chris were sitting comfortably in the peloton until Chris found himself with a backseat view of a crash and endo at the end of the second lap after a rider seemed to intentionally attack a roadside ditch (classic Men's B tactic). Chris averted disaster but went down. Nick rode a smart race, finishing with the peloton in 19th. In the Women's A/B race, the race detonated from the start, and Alli, Ashely, and Hannah quickly found themselves on three separate 52-mile time trials. Though road races aren't her "jam", Alli kept the pace high and constant coming in 8th in the Women's A field. Ashley decided that 52 miles was simply not challenging enough and decided to attempt a lap without air in her rear tire. Not one to make excuses, Ashley literally tore up the rolling hills of Dirty Jerz and finished the race with the back end of the bike sliding back and forth uncontrollably. Super awesome.

--"Criterium"--
Normally the highlight of the weekend for all (mildly biased view), Rutgers decided to make their race the "New Jersey" of criteriums. With a "rise" that forced even riders in Men's B to shift into the little ring on every lap, the criterium course shed the usual suspects, and instead favored riders that salivate from the idea of hill repeats. In the Men's D race, Nathan (upgraded from Intro the previous day) averaged about 130 rpms racing without a big ring and finished 12th followed by Will in 25th. In Men's C, Jon attacked early, splitting the field. He then recovered, sat in, and threw down a nice sprint at the end finishing 7th. Adam (the guy who just annihilated his bike the previously day with a pedal stroke) tempted fate, laughing in the face of danger and decided to mount Will's bike which has a seemingly magnetic attraction to the asphalt. Though he undoubtedly was white-knuckling every decent, Adam hung tough and finished 20th. In Men's Intro, Danny came away unscathed in his first crit finishing 20th. In Women's C, the field broke apart immediately, scattering groups of 3-4 riders across the road. Although it was easily the most difficult race to keep track of, according to the results page, Colleen came in at 17th, Sonya in 20th (after recovering from a wreck) and Rachel in 27th. In Women's intro, Elif had her swan song in the category and barely missed out on the victory salute finishing 2nd followed by Kristin who also kept it upright finishing 12th.

Team mechanic Matt Feiner and our three fearless intro riders ready to ride.

Chris rode a smart race in Men's B, hanging in the peloton until it broke into several small chase groups following an attack by one of many sand-bagging MIT riders. Chris finished 30th in a race that saw over 1/3 of the field pulled or DNF'd. In Women's A/B, the usual field detonation took place nearly immediately. The challenging course led to constant lapping with racers in the field lapped up to 5 times. Hannah beasted the "rise" numerous times and racked up serious points finishing 11th followed by Ashley in 17th. In the final race of the day, the Men's A race was marked by a blistering pace from the gun. After putting a foot down avoiding a crash on a curb, Dan found himself OTB chasing (and stupidly not taking a free lap). Ian and Jelle owned the course, covering moves by the pro riders in the field and holding the peloton on numerous accelerations. Jelle joined what looked to be the winning move of the day (in a group with all the heavy hitters), but the group was brought back by the peloton after 2 laps. Friend-of-Yale-Cycling Erik Levinsohn and an MIT rider made the actual winning move of the day, counter attacking the previous move by Jelle's group. Erik missed the win by 2 meters taking home 2nd! After tail-gunning the final 6 laps, Ian put in his patented uphill sprint attack on the final ascent of the mountain on the course, and rubbed elbows with the pro's, bringing home the bacon in 8th!

Overall, incredible first weekend of racing. The team looks posed to make a strong run at the Ivy League Trophy and a potential team qualification for Nationals! Congrats to everyone this weekend.

Next Weekend: Columbia and Stevens.

Week One - The Saga Begins

noreply@blogger.com (Yale Cycling) — Fri, 04 Mar 2011 19:37:00 +0000

   I just finished packing up the car for the week one Rutgers Scarlet Scurry. I've been waiting for this day since the end of last year's Dartmouth road race. I hope everyone is prepared to see Bulldog Cycling at the top of the race results for the next eight weeks.

   Last year's dominant women's squad is, once again, in top form, ready to take the ECCC by storm. In addition, our men's squad has decided that 2011 is the year to make it happen. Be prepared to see extremely strong men's squads in both the B and C fields.

   Since I know you'll be itching for race results, I'll be posting up-to-the-minute updates on the YaleCycling twitter feed. Otherwise you can expect a full race recap Sunday night or, depending on the amount of suffering I experience, Monday morning.

Points Racing 101

noreply@blogger.com (Yale Cycling) — Mon, 28 Feb 2011 15:10:00 +0000

As I mentioned in my last post, cyclists seem to thrive on predictability. So, it's understandable that when Rutgers Cycling, overcoming tremendous obstacles, opted to host a points race, there was quite a bit of griping on the part of racers expecting a traditional circuit.

I, for one, am pretty amped up about the points race. To me, one of the best aspects of collegiate cycling is the ability to participate in types of races you would otherwise shy away from. So, with that in mind, I turned to Chris Miller, Yale Cycling's resident track rider, to explain points racing. Here is his wisdom:

I hope everyone is as excited about this as I am, because it is going to be awesome! I raced a couple seasons of track a while ago, and I concentrated on these sorts of races.

What is this points race, you might ask? Answer: a points race is a race around a circuit, but unlike a crit or a circuit or a road race, the winner isn't necessarily the person who crosses the finish line first; rather, he or she is the rider who has accumulated the most points over the course of a race. Like a crit, a points race is a race often defined by time, e.g. 40 minutes plus 5 laps. All of this may sound dull, but the fun comes in when you realize how points are awarded:

In a sample points race, officials will award the following:

20 points for lapping the field,
-20 points for being lapped by the field,
Points for winning each sprint (5-4-3-2-1 awarded five deep) occurring every five laps.
Points for winning the final sprint (5-4-3-2-1 awarded five deep)

When you lap the field or get lapped, you are no longer considered ahead or behind the field, and you sprint with everybody else for sprint points the next time they come up. This means it may serve you to delay regrouping with the pack, or time your attack to rack up both lapping and sprint points. I once lost my win by misjudging a rider behind me who I thought wouldn't be able to chase me down as I lapped the field. He did, but he was fat and it took him a while, and by taking a while, he racked up the sprint points for two sprint laps.

So, you may think criteriums are tactical. Points races are far more so. You have to continually evaluate every rider's strength, do dynamic arithmetic for all the race leaders (this math is the hard part for me - I once thought I won, threw up my hands, and realized I'd added wrong), gauge whether you should close the gap as you are lapping the field vs. whether you can hold out alone for another minute to sweep up the sprint points before rejoining the group. Ideally, the course in two weeks will be short, with people lapping each other left and right. This makes for a fast, exciting race.

Consider letting a sprint go, and then attacking to lap the field when everyone else is tanked. Consider bluffing and testing the riders around you. You want to know how they stand, and you don't want to show your cards.

Finally, reasons you should keep up on other riders' points:

1. You don't want to work if you don't have to. Don't waste yourself in a sprint if the riders around you aren't in contention for the ultimate win that you are in a far better scoring place for.

2. You want to attack with riders strong enough to lap the field with you, but who aren't in contention for the win.

3. If you do attack with riders in contention with you, think of blocking them out of a sprint later, because it's not only how well you do, but how badly they do, that counts.

4. Same as 1-3, above, but with respect to second, third, fourth place, etc., once you've dropped out of contention for the win.

As I said above, this is going to be awesome. In closing, I convey my hope that all of you (1) wear your skinsuits, and (2) ride with rage in your hearts (but not so much rage that it clouds your fifth grade arithmetical abilities). In lieu of (2) I will also accept "thoroughly enjoy a novel and dynamic form of bicycle racing and come out smiling from how crazy fun it was."

Okay. Bye.

Race Ready

noreply@blogger.com (Yale Cycling) — Mon, 21 Feb 2011 16:24:00 +0000

There is something cathartic about preparing for a race. It is the perfect foil to the adrenaline-fueled insanity of bike racing. Race preparation, from training to nutrition to the pre-race ritual, is constant, predetermined, and ritualistic. For our new racers, I thought I would document my race-prep leading up to yesterday's ACCC foray.

The Race Bag

A rider's race bag can prove to be the key to success on race weekend. You want to be prepared for every contingency. The last thing you want is to end up scrambling for arm warmers or begging long-fingered gloves from teammates as you're trying to finish your warm-up. I like having a bag with several compartments so that I can keep things organized. For this weekend my bag had three sections.

The large pocket of my bag contained clothing I was planning on racing in: skinsuit, arm warmers, knee warmers, fingerless gloves, helmet and shoes (these are shockingly easy to forget), base layers, socks, and sunglasses.

The second pocket included contingency clothes: wind vest, winter jacket, long-fingered gloves, extra base layers, booties, tights, a neck warmer, and an extra kit, just in case.

The third pocket on my bag includes little things that I'll most likely end up using during race weekend: a multi-tool, chain lube, a rag for cleaning bike parts, DZNuts, extra tubes, tire levers, and GU.

This Week is Slightly Special...

Getting pro. This winter was, according to my neighbors and other long time New Haveners, the worst in decades. In the fall I decided that, instead of buying another pair of expensive tights, I would let nature's base-layer grow back in. Along with padding my masculinity, a nice layer of leg fur also proved to be excellent winter insulation. But, alas, race season is here and, for a million reasons I will not delve into, I am a devoted leg-shaver. This week it was time to get pro.

Saying Goodbye to an Old Friend. Thanks to Matt, Mitch, and everyone else at The Devil's Gear, I'll be lining up at Rutgers with an amazing new bike. This is bitter sweet for me. I've been riding my Trek 2300 for the past 8 years. Its been to countless races and survived tens of thousands of miles all around the country. For its last race, I decided my faithful steed deserved a good cleaning and a fond farewell.

Getting Out The Door

Waking up at 6am in a hotel room chalk full of cyclists can be disorienting. I try to pack up before going to bed, so that I can roll out of bed, scrub my teeth, and be ready to rock. Bag and bike make it out and into the car and we're ready to roll. This weekend we were spoiled by late start times, allowing time for breakfast at a delightful local pancake house. Normally, I'd keep a bagel and peanut butter or a jar or oatmeal on hand so that I could get some breakfast into my body during the drive to the race. A bottle of water or gatorade is good to have around. Fueling properly is the key to peak performance.

Setting up Camp and Getting Down to Business

If you're driving to the race, there is no greater accomplishment than finding a parking spot near the bathroom facilities. Clutch. Almost automatically, we pile out of the car and find the reg table. We sign in, collect our numbers, pay our fees, chat with other racers in line. Next we set up camp: unpack the tent, set up the tables, mark start times on the white board, set up trainers, lay out bikes and spare wheels, check tire pressures. 45 minutes before race time its time to jump on the trainer. Spin your legs out, get in a few solid efforts to open up your lungs and accustom your legs to the sensation. During this time, I like to put on my headphones and put myself in race mode. Run through the course in your mind, consider tactical options. With 10 to go, its time to tighten your shoes, put on your helmet and glasses and get to the start. The race before the race is where technical crits are won. Be ready for staging, take a practice lap if the officials allow, and take a few deep breaths.

The Start Line

There is sometimes an uncomfortable silence on the start line. Anxiety runs high, as racers prepare for the madness that is about to ensue. I'm uncomfortable with awkward silence, so I usually use this time to make a lame joke, or heckle other riders. The official will come to the front and give you race instructions. These normally include the race distance, field size, and any special instructions (yellow line rules, feed zones, etc.). They step back and the whistle blows...

Check back later this week for a race report!

Champ Sys Spotlight

noreply@blogger.com (Yale Cycling) — Wed, 16 Feb 2011 15:34:00 +0000

Check out Yale Cycling in Champ-Sys's Spotlight!

Champion-System-News

Yale Cycling on the InterWebs

noreply@blogger.com (Yale Cycling) — Fri, 28 Jan 2011 18:48:00 +0000

Facebook. For those on Facebook, there are three things you need to look
at:

Yale University Bulldog Cycling
http://www.facebook.com/pages/Yale-University-Bulldog-Cycling/160331755517

Yale's "Lux et Velocitas"
http://www.facebook.com/pages/Yale-Cycling-Lux-et-Velocitas/177797844713

Event "Lux et Velocitas" 3.0
http://www.facebook.com/permalink.php?story_fbid=195176957164810&id=160331755517

You should go, like them or say you're coming. And of course, share
with friends.

Yale Cycling is on Twitter. The posts are published to both the
www.yale.edu/cycling and to the Facebook page.
For those who want to follow: http://twitter.com/YaleCycling

Lux et Velocitas 3.0

noreply@blogger.com (Yale Cycling) — Sun, 21 Nov 2010 22:22:00 +0000

Save the date as Yale Cycling will host the 3rd Annual Lux et Velocitas weekend on April 9 & 10, 2011.

Updated Week#6 Ivy League Standings....We are now #2

noreply@blogger.com (Yale Cycling) — Fri, 16 Apr 2010 18:29:00 +0000

1	University of Pennsylvania	950
2	Yale University	707
3	Dartmouth College	699
4	Harvard University	520
5	Columbia University-NYC	359
6	Princeton University	178
7	Cornell University	144
8	Brown University	21

There was a mistake in the original scoring of the weekend, a rider was mis-marked. As a result, we move up to 2nd in the Ivy Standings.

Yale Lux Et Velocitas Recap

noreply@blogger.com (Yale Cycling) — Tue, 13 Apr 2010 11:52:00 +0000

Hi racers, friends of the team, and tag-alongs on the panlist,

You've already gotten a taste of the excitement that was this weekend
from Tacco's thank you and the subsequent flood of emails riding the
wave. Here's the full weekend recap:

BIG RESULT:
We placed second overall for the weekend (only behind MIT) and first in
the Ivy league. Right on.

THE LONG AND THE SHORT OF IT:
Saturday morning started off with the most beautiful weather, in marked
contrast to last year. Beautiful enough that I can no longer remember
that awful, awful day. Anyway, we had some beastly TT results: Sarah
Bowman placed second in the Women's A field, losing only to MIT's Martha
Buckley (a pattern, it seems?). Amelia placed fifth in the WB field,
while Jenn Mygatt, Erica, Alli, Hannah, Jenny, Ashely and Constance
cleaned house in the women's C field, placing third, fourth, eleventh,
twelfth, seventh, eighteenth and thirty-fifth, respectively. That's a
lot of points! On the men's side, I finished twelfth in the Men's A
field. In Men's C, our three riders of Rich, Chris Miller, and Nick
Walter placed thirteenth, seventeenth and twenty-second, three very
solid finishes in a competitive field. Neil and Eric Fischer dominated
the Men's D field with a sixth and a ninth, followed by Jon and David.
Nick Geiser won the men's intro TT, claiming a nice KOM jersey; Dan
Blizzard followed closely behind in second, with Brian and Will getting
sixth and eighth. In the Women's Intro, Jenifer placed third, while
Rachel Kurchin and Sara Wollmacher placed ninth and fourteenth. My
favorite line from after this race was from Ashley, which was something
like, "I think I left my right lung up at the top." I'll cosign that, Ash.

The circuit race course was even better than last year, as it fed
straight from Livingston onto Whitney, rather than doing the left turn
on East Rock rd. We started a few minutes behind schedule after a police
officer went to East Rock Park rd, instead of the above spot, but all
was quickly resolved. The Men's D road race was a delight to watch. Neil
road smart in the top ten the whole time, and powered up the finishing
climb for a fourth place overall. Jon and David placed 28^th and 35^th .
Jason Kappa and Eric Fischer both had some bad luck and DNF'd on flats
(without injuries! Which made their captains more than a little
relieved). The Men's Intro field was won, again, by Nick Geiser followed
by Dan in second (awesome finish, Nick! but keep your hands on the
handlebars through the finish. If you fell I'd ruthlessly kick your
butt). Brian and Mark rode smart and worked together during the race and
placed eighth and ninth. In the Men's C race, Rich proved again that
he's got some serious power and finished in ninth, in a showing that
looked effortless. Erik sperling followed in 11^th , and Nick Walter was
in 27^th (Chris miller got a flat; again, sorry about that, but I was SO
EXCITED to see that you weren't hurt. God I'm my mother...). In the
Men's A race, I rode a very stupid race and missed the break, finishing
at the front of the pack on that god-forsaken climb for 18^th place.
The Women's fields, surprise, kicked some serious booty again. In the
Intro race, Jenifer Hanna placed 8^th , followed by Rachel and Sara W.
in 19^th . The Women's C field had high finishes from Jenn Mygatt in
3^rd , Erica Blom in 7^th , Jenny in 9^th , Alli in 10^th , Ashley in
14^th , and Constance in 30^th . Wowsahs. In the WA/B field, Sarah
placed fourth, followed by Lara in fifth, and Amelia DNF because of a
flat. Overall, some serious domination on Saturday.

Sunday was a little cooler than Saturday, but just about perfect riding
weather. The crit was a wide course and well marshaled and swept. This
year, there were only three crashes that merited a trip to Yale-New
Haven (what a crazy sport this is where writing something like that is
positive...). Anyway, in addition to the collegiate races, Tacco also
coordination a Men's 4/5 race, and Men's ¾ race, and a Women's 4 race
(which is quite rare and had a substantial turnout of 20 riders!). On
the Women's side, Sarah Bowman had another stellar race, following
behind Martha Buckley and Yuri Matsumoto from MIT for a third place
finish. Christine got pinched by some riders on turn two of one of the
final laps and went down on the bridge. (Sorry Christine, but I was just
so glad to see that you didn't have a broken collarbone!). Amelia in the
same race placed seventh in the B field. The Women's C race was perhaps
my favorite of the weekend. After Anna sent off the riders with a
tentative plan (which was perhaps frustrated by a rogue cowbell on the
course), our ladies worked together and had some serious wins. Alli WON
with a killer finish, followed by Erica, Ashley, and Jenny in 11^th ,
17^th , and 22^nd . The Women's Intro field had another fun race to
watch, with Rachel Duncan placing 5^th , Rachel Kurchin placing 12^th ,
and Sara placing 15^th .
On the men's side, Nick claimed his third win of the weekend. Dan
followed right behind in third, with Carl Oswald in 5^th , Will in 6^th
, and Brian in 11^th . Nice work! In the Men's D field, Neil had another
solid race placing fifth, with Jon behind in 22^nd . Eric avoided
several crashes on the final lap, and placed 26^th after having been
riding at the front of the pack the whole time. That was a fun race to
cheer for. In the C field, Chris Miller placed 6^th !! Nick Walter, Erik
Sperling, and Tacco finished nearly together midway through the pack. In
the A Race, Rudy and I placed ninth and third overall, showing the ECCC
what was what. (ADDENDUM: dougE is modest. He raced an awesome race and
came around the last corner first wheel with two riders right on him for
the finishing sprint. He fended off the pack and placed third! Rudy also
threw down a boat load of attacks throughout the brutal 60 minutes of
Men's A racing. Overall, a spectacular race to watch.)

Truly a spectacular weekend. What was most important to me was how much
fun I had hanging out with our team Saturday and Sunday, especially at
Anna's house on Saturday night; talk about good food! That was a
smörgåsbord of scrumptiousness. Thank you, Anna!

Nice work everyone. Rest up for our last two weekends, and get your work
done.

Cheers,

dougE

Ivy League Standings Week #6

noreply@blogger.com (Yale Cycling) — Mon, 12 Apr 2010 15:29:00 +0000

1	University of Pennsylvania	950
2	Dartmouth College	706
3	Yale University	698
4	Harvard University	520
5	Columbia University-NYC	359
6	Princeton University	178
7	Cornell University	144
8	Brown University	21

Ivy League Standings Week #5

noreply@blogger.com (Yale Cycling) — Mon, 05 Apr 2010 19:12:00 +0000

1	University of Pennsylvania	830
2	Dartmouth College	527
3	Yale University	510
4	Harvard University	427
5	Columbia University-NYC	287
6	Princeton University	178
7	Cornell University	107
8	Brown University	12

Tour de Peter Pan: Bucknell Weekend Recap

noreply@blogger.com (Yale Cycling) — Mon, 05 Apr 2010 19:07:00 +0000

Ciclisti!

What a sweet weekend! First and most importantly: No new members of R.A..C.E.s*!

Saturday was made of a rolling TTT and windy circuit race through rural Pennsylvania (think: horse drawn buggies with mennonites). In the TTT, our Men did well and had a blast, but the women rocked the show! First place finishes from the Women's Intro, C, and A fields. Go Ladies (ladies being Lara, Sarah, Amelia, Alli, Constance, Sarah, and Rachel). In the road race, the men did well, with Brian placing fifth in the Intro field while Neil placed ninth and David placed 53rd in the D field. Chris and I both didn't do so well in the heat, and bonked our races. Rachel and Sarah rocked the show in the women's Intro race, finishing fourth and seventh. Alli raced smart in the Women's C field, placing third, with Constance following in fifteenth. In the A/B field, Lara, Sarah and Amelia placed first, second, and ninth. Damn!

Sunday was pure domination. In a hilly, technical, eight turn crit, the Yale team put forth a great show, with every rider scoring points! In the women's A/B field, Lara and Sarah broke away from the pack and worked together for the final few laps, with Sarah becoming the first B woman to win a race in the Women's A/B field. Go Sarah! In the same race, Amelia finished well into the top ten after recovering from a crash early on the first or second lap. Alli rocked a fourth in the WC field. The women's Intro field had a blast with Sarah Wollmacher placing seventh and Rachel Kurchin placing fourth. Brian Tang, representing the men's intro field, represented, with a first place finish after a super smart race. Neil and Chris both had great races, placing eighth and fourth in the men's D and men's C races, respectively. I had an itsy-booboo, and crashed on the final lap of the Men's A race after having avoided three crashes during the race. Despite my best efforts, Sunday was a great day for the Yale racers, and we placed THIRD overall for the weekend, behind PennState and Upenn.

But NEXT WEEKEND will be THE WEEKEND for us Yale racers. Lux et Velocitas is going to be spectacular. Check out the flyer attached, and go ride the courses! Knowing the ITT course will help you gain between 30 seconds and 1:00 minute, if you know when to go hard and how to take the corners (be careful when practicing on open roads!).

Also, GET VOLUNTEERS TO HELP MARSHALL AND SIGN UP FOR MARSHALLING SHIFTS!! If you notice at these weekends, the hosting team has a responsibility to make sure that all marshalling spots are filled, whether by volunteers or by ourselves. EACH PERSON ON OUR TEAM IS REQUIRED TO SIGN UP FOR ONE SHIFT EACH DAY THEY ARE RACING!! SEND YOUR PREFERENCES TO THE EMAIL BELOW. But having volunteers makes our job easier; the fewer volunteers we get, the more we'll be working the spaces ourselves before and after our races. Check Tacco's email for details, and then email marshal@luxetvelocitas.com with when you can volunteer.

Rest up, eat well, get strong, ride fast.

dougE

*Riders Against Clavicular Experiences, see last weeks update

Ivy League Standings Week #4

noreply@blogger.com (Yale Cycling) — Tue, 30 Mar 2010 13:11:00 +0000

1	University of Pennsylvania	598
2	Dartmouth College	527
3	Harvard University	427
4	Yale University	341
5	Columbia University-NYC	287
6	Princeton University	178
7	Cornell University	85
8	Brown University	12

Princeton/Stevens Race Report: Lions, Tigers, and Clavicles, oh my!

noreply@blogger.com (Yale Cycling) — Mon, 29 Mar 2010 21:54:00 +0000

Dear Cyclists,

I'll begin this report seriously with a bit of sad news. In what was
otherwise a great race, Nicholas Friesner, on the final turn of the road
race course, was struck by an erratic rider from the Indiana University
of Pennsylvania and crashed. Nicholas has joined the club started by
Anna and Tom, and is now our third member of R.A.C.Es (Riders Against
Clavicular Experiences). Thank you to Eric for helping Nicholas at the
hospital. Everyone, please send your wisdom (if you're a former member)
and words of encouragement to nicholas (nicholas.friesner@yale.edu).

Now the sweet news. Neil finally sealed the deal and finished a race! He
won the time trial (profoundly disturbing the second place finisher from
MIT in the process) on Saturday morning, and in the criterium the trio
of Nicholas, Neil, and Eric raced a smart race, with Nicholas leading
out Neil for a 3^rd place finish. Eric himself placed 5^th in the TT,
and placed 9^th in the criterium and had a fun road race today. John, on
a fresh bike, was knocked down early in the crit by another rider, with
(THANK GOODNESS) no damage to himself or his bike. David placed fourth
in the TT, Won the criterium, and placed third in the circuit race
Sunday. Brian Tang, in his first race weekend, learned NOT to pace
yourself off of others in the TT; in the crit and road race, he smartly
learned to work with the other racers placing in the top 10 in both races.

Constance and Erica returned for their first race weekend of the season.
Both rediscovered why they love racing! After a very fast and tough crit
on Saturday, they had a blast racing in the road race Sunday. Erica
finished with an impressive ninth overall. Alli placed third in the TT,
eighth in the crit, and eleventh in the road race today. Ashley had fun
in the crit race (providing me with a model I took to heart) and had a
great road race today. Jenny and Christine made a welcome appearance for
Saturday's races. Jenny had an excellent time trial, and finished
seventh in the crit! Christine, like myself, had a less than stellar TT
result, but raced well in the crit. Christine and Sarah started off near
the back of the field, and given the course never had a chance to move
up in the field. Sarah dominated the women's TT in the morning,
finishing second in the B field and fourth of all women (behind
marthabuckley). In the road race Sunday, she finished fourth in the
Women's B field. We can't wait for her to move up to the A field where
she clearly belongs.

Full results (below) and photo finishes are posted at
www.velocityresults.net <http://www.velocityresults.net/>. Check 'em out!

dougE

tt
Doug 20th
Sarah 2nd (4th overall)
Alli Hugi 3rd
Jenny 5th
Erica 10th
Constance 16
Ashley 18
Neil 1st
Eric 5th
Nicholas 15th
Jonathan 19th
David 4th
Brian 15th

Crit
Doug 15th
Sarah 12th
Christine 12th
Alli 8th
Jenny 12th
Ashley 24th
Erica 28th
Constance 30th
Neil - 4th
Eric 14th
Nicholas 20th
David 1st!
Brian 10th

RoadRace
Doug 12th
Sarah 4th
Erica 9th
Alli 11th
Ashley 18th
Constance 25th
Neil 6th
Eric 8th
Jonathan 25th
David 3rd
Brian 8th

Ivy League Standings Week #3

noreply@blogger.com (Yale Cycling) — Mon, 22 Mar 2010 17:44:00 +0000

	SCHOOL	TOTAL PTS
1	University of Pennsylvania	450
2	Dartmouth College	345
3	Harvard University	345
4	Yale University	254
5	Columbia University-NYC	214
6	Princeton University	157
7	Cornell University	61
8	Brown University	12

Someone was NOT wearing their lucky underpants... [The Philly Race Weekend Recap]

noreply@blogger.com (Yale Cycling) — Mon, 22 Mar 2010 17:31:00 +0000

Dear Cyclists,

Let me begin by saying that it wasn't me; I WAS wearing my lucky
underpants, so it must have been someone else.

This weekend was a long and sometimes painful one. There was quite a
bit of excellent racing, but there was also quite a lot of bad karma
about, and the bad news must be aired with the good. Because it might
be comical in length alone, I will begin with the bad news from the
weekend and then proceed to the spankin' sweet results. If you're
having a bad monday morning, may I suggest skipping to creme. If you do
decide to read the bad news, I have taken the liberty of inappropriately
inserting emoticons to make it more palatable.

*The Really Bad News:*
Anna :-* in the circuit race :-) took a corner too fast and crashed
:-( ; after an ER visit :-$ , it was clear that she had broken :-[ her
clavicle =-O in three places >:o and fractured her scapula :-D . Tom
and David, after dominating 8-) in the men's intro race from the very
start, crashed :-X with four turns to go; Tom too :'( took a trip to
the ER :-( and discovered that he also broke his clavicle >:o . Matt
believes broken clavicles are contagious :-! .
Please join with me in wishing both Tom (Thomas.fleming@yale.edu) and
Anna (Anna.olivier@yale.edu) speedy recoveries.
*The Bad, but by no means comparable, News:*
Neil, looking unbelievably strong this weekend, didn't get the chance to
finish a race. In the circuit race, after being in the perfect position
the whole time, he flatted. In the Crit, again riding a perfectly
strategic race, he crashed in a corner after the free lap rule was up.
Next weekend, man, you will get a chance to show the D field who's boss.

*The Slightly Ridiculous Bad News*
At the end of the race day on Sunday, however, Doug, Alli and David were
stranded in South Philly as Tacco drove home with Doug's keys. With
Sarah and Alexis coming the rescue (with a Triple-A account), a new set
of keys was made and they made it safe back to new haven only a few
hours later. Chris and Rachel, however, were in a car accident. They
are OK, but it sure wasn't a great topper to their weekend.
Fortunately, that accident may have saved Tacco from an atomic wedgie.

*The Good News:*
Overall for the weekend we placed fifth, behind PennState, UPenn, MIT,
and UVM. We racked up some ill finish line photos this week: Alli,
Amelia, Tom, David, Doug, Nicholas, and Jennifer all made appearances on
www.velocityresults.net. Check that out for complete results.
The Women's A Time Trial of Anna, Christine, Sarah, and Amelie claimed
2nd, losing by only a little to the MIT squad. The Women's C squad of
Ashley, Alli, Amelia, and Hannah crushed their competitors and took
first by 22 seconds, placing equivalently 4th in the B field. The Men's
Intro group of William, David, and Tom took first. The men's A Time
Trial of Doug, Nicholas, Neil, and Chris, did NOT finish last (Note:
everyone who finished ahead had many more shaved legs).

The circuit race, modified slightly from previous years to accommodate
construction, was in nearly perfect weather of 70-something and sunny.
The 6 mile loop had two moderate climbs, and some very fast
straightaways. Nicholas placed second in the Men's D field in what was
a picture perfect finishing sprint. Ashley, in the C field, had a
similar sprint being third in her pack coming around the final turn; she
finished behind Alli, Hannah, and Amelia, placing 15th, 10th, 7th, and
6th, respectively. Tom and David placed a fearsome 2nd and 5th in the
Intro Field, with Will following in 12th. Meanwhile, Jennifer placed
4th in her first race, followed closely by Alexis in 5th.
Super-Strong-Sarah placed 7th in the fast Women's B field, and I placed
17th in the Men's A field.

The Criterium was held at the very southern end of Philly, in the Naval
Base. The L shaped course was perfectly flat, very smooth, and winding.
Jennifer placed second in the Women's Intro field, proving that she's
more than able to join our other fine ladies in the C field. Speaking
of whom, our C women continued their pattern of racing very intelligent
races: Ashley and Alli blocked for Amelia who was able to take home a
first. Ash and Alli took 8th and 9th. Great teamwork, and great
results. Nicholas in the Men's D field held the ninth position for
nearly the entire time of the twisty race. Will took 14th in the Men's
Intro race. Doug avoided a crash (and the claviculitis) on the final
lap of the men's A race but couldn't bridge up to the leaders in time
and took 9th.
Next weekend is Princeton's race. They're putting on an ITT (very
flat), a 4 mi Circuit race with a 330 ft climb, and a criterium. It
looks to be a set of very well chosen courses, and should be a great
weekend.

I have some serious Thank you's to Alli, David, Ashley, Amelia, Sarah,
Alexis, and Neil for being a huge help when the going got tough.

Happy Monday,

dougE