Saturday started late, as I got to sleep in until about 6am.  We loaded up the trailer, hopped in our vans and made the short trip north to Harriman State Park.  I used the morning to finish dialing in my fit on my new Ridley Excalibur.  We were called to staging and sent off on our way for a 66 mile race.  Within 2 minutes, we were screaming down a descent at over 50 mph.  There is nothing that will make you doubt whether or not you tightened every bolt and set everything up correctly like going 50 mph on a bike that you finished building just over 14 hours earlier, and have only done 20 minutes of spinning around the parking lot on prior.

The race started out relatively easy, with not too many people trying to get away on the first lap.  From the second lap forward, guys kept trying to get away with increasing frequency.  This wore on my legs, and as Dylan came around the hairpin hard after the descent and leading into the climb on the 5th lap, I sensed that my exit from the back of the peloton would be soon approaching.  Sure enough, about 4 miles later, I was spit out of the back of the peloton and could not regain contact.  I finished out the lap riding mostly hard, and was pulled and place at the line (though they actually gave me the bell and I quickly pulled myself; because who wants to wait 45 minutes for a tired ass guy to do another lap?).  Dylan ended up winning the field sprint, and then having his dream immediately crushed as he realized that there was a Penn State guy up the road who took the race.  Sydney flatted out at some point after I got dropped.

Sunday started much earlier, with a 4:30am wakeup for me.  We once again made the trip up to, this time, the US Military Academy’s campus for a hill climb ITT and a Criterium.  After nearly not having enough time to get dressed and warmed up due to an incredibly long wait for stalls in the men’s restroom (I’ll let you figure that one out for yourself), I got up to the line and was ready to go. 10 seconds; 5, 4, 3, 2, 1, go.  I was off up the hill, 2.9 miles with just over 800 feet of climbing.  Overall, I felt great and the effort was over much quicker than I expected, at just over 12 minutes of riding.  This slotted me in at 16th and would be the only points that I got all weekend.  For the next 6 hours, I sat in the van, napped, and watched the races from the top of the hill (including an awesome long breakaway by Michael Carroll, who should write his own race report to tell you about it).

The criterium finally got underway around 3pm.  Once again, just like Shippensburg last weekend, the race started out full gas.  A strong head/crosswind from the right on the long, straight backstretch made the race extra difficult.  Dylan attacked a ton during the race, and my one shining moment came after one such attack.  As Dylan was coming back to the pack after unsuccessfully attempting to bridge up to the two-man break in front (I think), I flew off the front.  I flew through the start/finish ahead of the field and making progress on the break.  I got within about 30 feet, and which point the aforementioned wind smacked me straight in the face and I started losing ground to them.  On the verge of blowing up and realizing that I was now not going to complete the break attempt, and with still about 10-15 seconds (who knows, I’m bad at estimating times in a race) on the pack, I sat up and recovered so that I could rejoin the pack when they got back up to me.  I’m sure this was very dramatic for anyone watching the race unfold from the opposite side of the course, as I don’t mess around when I sit up.  My legs paid the price for that effort, and I hoped that I would be able to sit in the pack.  Unfortunately, a couple of laps later, 9 guys got off the front. Bridge after bridge made it up the road, and eventually a majority of the peloton was now in the “break.”  With less people around all the time, riding up the windy backstretch got harder and harder, and eventually I was dropped with around 12 laps to go.  Interestingly to me, and I have no idea how this happened; Penn State’s Michael Garretson (ECCC Points Leader) was right with me around the point that I considered myself to get dropped (he’s hard to miss in that yellow jersey).  He appeared to be suffering for quite some time before that as well, but ended up finishing 3rd in the race, meaning that he had somehow gotten back up to the group and recovered enough to be able to sprint at the end.  That’s probably why he’s in the yellow jersey and I’m not, gotta work on my superhuman strength for next year.

Trying to bridge to the break. Courtesy of RISD.

And about as close as I got to finishing the bridge attempt. Credit to Matt Sherman.

Overall, it was another great weekend with Columbia Cycling.  For the record, being an MWCCC veteran and having racing in the RMCCC as well, I have to say that I think that the ECCC is one of the best run conferences in the country; I have really enjoyed racing in it this year so far.  Next week we travel to Rhode Island (new state!), and I’m hoping to do better after having a bike this week and being able to train.