Wolfpack Cycling Classic

My road season kicked off this year with a road race and crit hosted by North Carolina State University February 14 and 15. They hosted both collegiate and USAC races. I needed two more points to upgrade to a cat 3 on the road so I did the cat 4 race on saturday. It proved to be my last race as a cat 4 as I finished 8th, the exact place I needed to pick up two points. The course was fairly flat with a few rollers but nothing big enough to break up the field, and it ended as typical sprint finish. I made a couple of break attempts, but no one seemed interested in working with me, and I was quickly reeled in. I was riding in pretty good position towards the end until several riders decided to ignore the center line rule with about a K to go and went around me. This left me boxed in with very little racing left. I made a mad scramble to position myself better and eventually got a clear shot at the line, but my attack came too late and my legs were too slow. Despite coming around at least a dozen people, the top spots were already long gone and I had to settle with eighth. At least it was good enough to upgrade.

Here is the start of the men’s pro 1/2 race. Several of my teammates and my coach rode in it.

My teammate Joe attacking up one of the small climbs

Lobster got third in the collegiate B road race and won the crit the next day. He is an amazing mountain biker but fairly new to road. I’m sure he will be dominating by the end of the season.

There was a massive pile up at the end of the B race. One of the riders smashed right into my friend Katheryn as we cheered from the side of the road. She got road rash before her race even started.

Here I am at the front of the peleton as an attack attempts to break free. There would be no break aways this race.

The Trimble in action. It’s still running strong after thousands and thousands of miles.

Here is the finish. I’m somewhere in this chaotic jumble of riders, the last squirrelly cat4 bunch sprint I will ever have to do.

The next day, the crit brought more chaos. Having gotten enough points in the cat 4 road race, I decided to race collegiate B in the crit. It was a very short course (half a mile at the most) with several tricky corners and a steep little hill. This made for tough racing as the attacks were nonstop and the field was continuously broken up. Several times I found myself behind riders who couldn’t hang on, and I had to make up the gap. About twenty minutes in, the pace died down and I noticed that two of my teammates and one other rider were off the front. I just sat in the pack, which had now shrunken considerably, to give them the best chance of survival. At 25 minutes into the race, which was supposed to last fifty minutes, I happened to glance up at the lap card, and it said 5 laps to go. Thats when the chaos began. Apparently the race officials decided to cut the race twenty minutes short without telling any of the rider. Everyone seemed to realize this at once, and the field went ballistic. Everyone stated attacking and people started crashing around me left and right. In the end, there was no peleton, just a bunch of stung out riders. My teammates in the break survived and finished first and third. I came in at eighth.