Saturday started off like most; waking up before the sun to sit in a van, or in this case the Shippensburg Student Union (the site that Travis Porter would “Make it Rain” just 24 hours later) while waiting for my race in the afternoon.  After a trip to Sheetz to get a large cup of coffee and getting my leg groped by one of the locals, I headed to the course to watch the morning races.  They were rather uneventful for the most part, although I do remember a kid in the Men’s B race with some sort of animal helmet cover flipping over his bars toward the end of the race after someone went down in front of him.

Cut to the Men’s A race.  I got to the line, looked to my left, and there was an astronaut on a bike.  I’m not joking here guys:

Photo courtesy of Jan Valerie Polk.

The whistle blew and we were off.  It was clear from the start that everyone had come to race, and the pace was very high for the first 30 minutes of our 60 minute race, averaging right around 28 mph for that stretch.  Needless to say, nothing really got off of the front.  During the second half of the race, the field slowed down a bit and attacks started flying.  I sat in for the most part and just conserved energy as I knew that it would be difficult for anyone to get away and it didn’t seem that the field was interested in letting a break win at all.  A solo Dartmouth rider got off the front with about 10(?) laps to go in the race, and had a 20 second lead with about 6 laps left.  Finally, the field got organized and within about 2 laps the Dartmouth rider was absorbed back into the field.  I was feeling good, and still trying to conserve for the finish.

With 2 laps to go I made a conscious effort to start moving up to get a good spot for the finish.  I knew that I had to be one of the first people around the last turn if I wanted to have a chance at victory.  I got to the inside on the last lap (there was a crosswind coming from the outside of the course right before turn 4, so I had to be here to move up and still have some left to attack the hill during the sprint).  We came into turn 4 frighteningly fast, and I heard the sound of brakes behind me.  It seems as though Penn State had let their leadout stall coming around the final turn, and this caused problems for those immediately behind me.  As I flew through the turn, I heard the familiar sound of bikes hitting the pavement.  With no time to think about this, I got out of my saddle and sprinted up the hill, putting out a pretty decent 1000-watt sprint after a hard race.  I ended up in 10^th, I hadn’t done enough to move up on the backstretch, but I was happy with the result.  My teammate Dylan had finished in 5^th right in front of me.

Onto the hill climb.  Jim told me I shouldn’t do it, and damn it he was right.  The start of the race was super sketchy for a group of guys who can generally handle their bikes pretty well.  Right as we were hitting the base of the climb, someone on the left side of the road crossed a wheel and toppled over.  This created a chain reaction that ended up with about 6 of us on the ground… in mile 2 of a 7 mile race.  My body may have gotten out of it with the least damage, as a Dartmouth rider dislocated his shoulder and Arnaud from Penn State suffered a hematoma on his hip.  However, my bike was not so lucky.  I ended up with a cracked and tacoed rear Powertap wheel, and a cracked seatstay on the same side.  Apparently someone ran me over, and my bike didn’t like that too much.  After sitting on the side of the road with Arnaud for about 20 minutes and beginning to get cold, we finally got a ride back and I came to the realization that I wouldn’t be racing the following day.  I was really looking forward to it because I fancy myself a climber/road racer, but I guess that’s bike racing.

The next day I manned the feedzone with Mike M.  We got there first and basically made ourselves in charge of it, handling the details of parking and such.  Watching the A race unfold was difficult because I wanted to be in it.

Fortunately, I’ve gotten another frame and will be able to race this weekend.  The frame is going to arrive on Friday and I’m going to have to build it up quickly thereafter to be ready at 7am on Saturday.  Thanks to Competitive Cyclist, Dylan and I with both now be riding Ridley Excaliburs, and will be tearing it up at Army this weekend.  I can’t wait to race again.