Dartmouth Cycling Wiki | Races / Rutgers-Princeton 2009

This weekend's race is a clear indicator of good things in the middle distance for Dartmouth Cycling. I'll go quickly over the highlights in case you aren't planning to read the entire article, and then dive into the witty matter-of-opinion to completely false statements.

Dartmouth drove a VOX Sprinter Van (more on this questionable feat of engineering later) to the Garden/Golden/Glowing/ProbablyShouldWashYourHandsAfterLeaving/GladWeDon'tHaveToContendWithThoseDriversOnADay-To-DayBasis state of New Jersey which offered all of us the warmest, most wonderful weather we've seen since the best day in October. I was personally prepared to race on an ice rink: my bag had every piece of winter gear I owned in it. I, and most other racers, ended up sporting BARE SKIN in such huge quantities that we were concerned with SUNBURN! The winter gear stayed in the bag where it couldn't protect us from CRASHES (more on that later).

We drove that van, filled with unnecessary clothing and SIX RIDERS, to the race weekend. TWO other RIDERS drove themselves. Our total of EIGHT RIDERS managed to solidly claim fifth place overall for the weekend.

The race logistics, massages, encouragement, happy endings, director-sportifiry and occasional good advise was provided in spades by our own hobbling Michael Rea, who's running dispute with the snow gods keep him off the bike and walking with a cane for the recent past and present. A huge thanks to Mike, without whom this Sprinter Van would surely have ended up in the woods—or perhaps never left the VOX auto mechanics garage.

Now, for the nitty-gritty

The 2.8 mile out-back-otherWayOut-backAgain TT course was just shy of dead-flat and short enough to encourage riders to kill themselves within the first 900 meters and bleed through their eyeballs for the remaining 2 miles. Luckily, our stable of strong, experienced riders didn't fall prey (completely) to that charming temptation. We did see one rider pull away from the line registering 1299 watts—a bit over-enthusiastic— but even that ride eventually came together. Our high points scorer for the morning was the one and only Eve McNeill, slotting in for third in the women's A field with a storming time of 6:36. In the mens C's Patrick Barter registered a good time with 6:06, finishing third overall and second in D2; and defeating 66% of the Mens A field. Trevor put in a solid time earning points with 8th in D2. The intensity was appropriate for the distance and saw one of our outstanding riders push himself to the point of making a little vomit. Good work!

The Princeton Campus crit was a splendid event with four corners and what we in the business call a 'wall'. The term wall, for the uninitiated, refers to a steep short hill that sucks the life and legs of heavier riders (unless they're named Eric and wearing green). Ben Jones and Will Blakely took care of the D2 field, riding steadily and with confidence until Ben decided to drop his backwards attack and take the field by surprise. Isaiah, Don, Trevor, and Patrick lined up for the C2 race buzzing from the hot results of the morning and from Trevor's embrocation rub. A few seconds before the gun, I (Patrick(stepping into first person for a sec)) got a "hey Dartmouth, your break pad fell out" and looked down to see one of my rear pads lying on the tar. We were set loose and I rode a lap thinking that I'd surely get a lap since I had a mechanical. Well, according to the rule book, that's not the case, so my strong backwards attack was for naught. On the good side, I didn't ride a C crit half-brakeless. Trevor, however, rode the hell out of it. He dosed his efforts perfectly and timed a powerful sprint to take first out of the bunch and second overall behind a solo flyer from Princeton.

In the women's A field, Eve also raced a smart race and made sure to grab a bundle of points and a solid 4th place at the line. Eve was looking very fit and is rumored to be coming off of two 20+ hour weeks; and her results didn't dispute it.

Eric, after a scuffle with the registration folks, took to the line and with great confidence, rode the race we all hoped he would. Princeton's Nick Frey rode off the front of the pack (and was later disqualified for a rumored late start) and Eric kept the pace high and was part of every significant move. In the end, Eric and Josh (secretly teammates in the real world), formed a 2 man break that the field couldn't respond to and cut deeply into the Nick's lead. While Nick was not to be caught (on the road), the gap was plummeting when Eric uncorked a chainstay-testing spring to cross the line second and take first place.

Report on the circuit race coming soon.