Philly Phyler Photo Update

Hey!

I got a ton of photos and picked a few of my favorites and wanted to share them:

I had a great weekend, I loved Saturday. The crowd, the racers, the music, the atmosphere were all great. Totally helped me get over my DNF from a popped tube. Saturday was more of the same.

Good work to all the newbie racers!

-Richard

a Rutgers race report

From Steve:

Time trial:

It was a rough morning getting started for our time trial. Men's D category was up first and we were late to getting there, so by the time we arrived they were already launching and I was rushed to get in line. Neither Jeremy or myself got any warm up time in, which of course is not a good thing for a such a short TT. The course itself was very nice, started off with a gradual uphill, which went down into a 180 degree turn and back on itself. I was picking up time on the person in front of me pretty well, although the turn made me lose a bit of time. I ended up passing the guy in front of me  towards the end but got passed by the rider behind me  who passed the person I passed and myself (he actually won the TT for men's D so that made me feel a bit better). Here's a picture from when he overtook me: http://velocityresults.com/images/2471.jpg He did draft me a little bit but I guess what the officials don't see doesn't matter.

Road race:

Was a wet start for this race. Felt pretty good going into the start and the "long" uphill in the beginning. Was towards the front middle of the pack which is right where I wanted to be. On the descent I heard people in front of me screaming "braking slowing" so I tapped my back brakes...bad move. Next thing I know my back tire slid out and I'm doing a side roll with my bike. The guy beside me fell the same way a tiny bit before I did so we clogged up the road. There were about 5 or 7 people who ended up dropping out from that crash. Luckily my bike was okay for the most part. The main trouble there was a change of road surface from an old paved road to a newly paved asphalt road that didn't even have lines yet. Mixed with the rain this was just a nasty combination for the D field.

Criterium:

Sean and myself chose to do the intro crit due to us both being beat up from falls in the road race. We both felt okay enough to ride the intro field, which made us both quite happy. The intro crit started out with a helpful lesson about braking (could have used that a day prior) and turning. We then did 3 laps with the coaches followed by a regroup and 4 laps for our actual ride. The crit course was really pristine. There was a decent uphill that went on for about 1/3 of the 1.2mile course followed by a lengthy downhill into a flat section where the line was. There was only one turn in the crit although it was not very sharp. The downhill section looped around for a turn but was so smooth that one could just take it without worrying. Sean and I ended up sprinting it out at the end against one another finishing 8th and 7th respectively in our field of 28. Not too shabby for being all beat up.

RUTGERS!!!!

There is not enough space in this post to describe the emotions pumping through my system Saturday morning as I eagerly awaited my first road race of the season. All of these emotions seemed to be multiplied by 10 after Paul (brother in-law to Dr. Goates and best host ever!) assured me that the kid walking around in a Garmin- Chipotle kit was indeed an authentic pro, and that he would be joining our field. I managed to get everything together and find my way down to the starting line. The race started out fast of course. The first and biggest climb on the course came at about the 1 mile mark. By the top of the field the field was split in two groups. Next 6 miles was fast and furious as the trailing group laid the hammer down in order to catch the leaders. After the regroup, the next two laps were routine with a few minor attacks but mostly steady pedaling. In those two laps I identified the pro in the field and "latched" my front wheel to his. About half way through the third lap he attacked and I was right there to go with him. Another guy also went with us. We realized that we had a gap so we perused to maintain it. The 3 of us held off the rest of the field for another half a lap before being caught by a group of 7. The group of 10 was once again quickly separated to 3 and 7 on the climb. I was in the group of 7. I stayed with the group of 7 for the remainder of the race and finished the race with a very poor, but improving, sprint for 8th place.

The "crit" was not really a crit in my books. The course was a longer loop that was either uphill or down the entire time. I sat in for most of the race but when they rang the bell for the fifth prime of the day I decided I had the legs and good position to go for it. So, on the hill I put in a worthy attack and rode to a prime lap victory. Sadly nobody else went with me on the attack. If they would have I might have tried harder to stay away from the pack, but considering I had no help I just slowly drifted back into the wind blocking field. On the last lap the field split while I was in bad position. I ended up finishing in 24th place.

Overall the weekend was great! Lots of great racing, lots of fun, and lots of Pain!! -Alan