Was super happy to be back at the Lucarelli & Castaldi Branchbrook Road Race – it’s one of my favorite races and I wanted to come at least once this spring. Max came too but he decided not to race as he wanted to taper for his Frozen Four Junior race the next day. There were lots of familiar faces, Coach Alan, Coach Pete, Billy who raced the Cat 1-2-3, Daniel and Julian who are now part of Dave Jordan Juniors and raced with me the Cat 4/5 field, and many others we know.
National Championship Jersey in Circuit Race
The Branchbrook Park race is described as a Circuit Race and I wasn’t sure whether I would be able to wear my National Championship Jersey which I won for the Road Race in the Junior 11-12 category last year. I did some searching around beforehand and it seemed that a Circuit Race is treated like a Road Race (there is no “Free Lap Rule” for example) but the Branchbrook Park course is less than 5 km long and I feared it might be a Crit Race. So, I contacted the organizer explaining my dilemma and Jim Bernstein wrote back “it’s considered a road race for all intents and purposes. Go ahead and wear the jersey”. To know what the exact rule is for other Cricut Races I also wrote USA Cycling but they haven’t yet responded.
Need to Lineup in First Row
I generally manage to start from the first row and I tried to make sure this would happen again for this race. Although I was near the start more than 10 minutes before the race, when our field was asked to come to the start line others managed to come in front of me and I ended up in the second row on the far right. That really hurt me! A rider that was in the first row swerved in front of me and for the life of him he couldn’t clip in – and because there’s a curb, I had nowhere to go for nearly ten seconds.
Fun, Surgy and Technical Race
My Cat 4/5 race had eight laps for a total of 26.6 km. It was a very fun dynamic race. Due to the wind and occasional bottle neck sections of the course, the race was very surgy and technical. My average speed of the race was 40.9 km/h per my Strava but this didn’t feel hard as the course is fairly flat. What was hard was to move up during the race as there were 56 other riders and the course is fairly narrow at times. Throughout the race, I stayed mid-pack and managed to move up a little with four laps to go. For the finish, however, I was not far ahead enough and I had no place to pass as the field was swerving all over the road. I sprinted in the saddle for 17th place out of 49 that finished (eight had DNFs) per the race results. My GoPro footage of the race is on our YouTube Channel.
Try to be back for Cherry Blossom Challenge
Overall, it was a great race. Thanks to all who made this race happen, especially Tom Mains who always gives discounts to juniors. Hopefully I can make it back for the Cherry Blossom Challenge Apr 6.
