Was great to be back at the Branchbrook Road Race course for the Lucarelli & Castaldi Summer Series #4. We were at Branchbrook first in April of last year for the Cherry Blossom Challenge, one of our first races ever (and you can see some pictures from back then in these Facebook and Instagram posts). The Branchbrook Crit course is fantastic, about 3 km long and very smooth.
Our Star Track teammates Avery and Logan joined Max and me and for the Cat 4/5 race. Our Crit was 11 laps, 50 minutes long and our field had 44 racers.
My goal was to stay near the front of the race and this mostly worked out in that I was in-between position 1st and 20th (roughly). My average speed was 40 km/h so a little slower than yesterday’s Central Park race even though that one was longer, about 70 km at Central Park vs 33 km at Branchbrook. The headwind on the homestretch was a challenge but I managed to mostly stay out of the wind. A little tricky was also the final corner of each lap because everyone was sprinting hard out of it.
The below video shows the race finish and I placed 16, about 3 seconds behind the winner. Oddly, the official race results show me coming in 36 second (not 3 seconds) behind the winner, but it also shows me finishing 16th so there is no reason to complain.
Max got dropped on the second lap after a someone crashed into Logan’s and his wheel. This threw them off and they fell behind and this made it hard to catch up to the field. Max and Logan rode a few laps together by themselves, then joined the Master’s field until someone from Veselka made an attack which everyone chased, and then those two joined the 4/5 field when we lapped them. Max fell a little behind here too but caught up to Avery and those two sprinted to finish, but Avery won by a bike throw and Max finished 33rd place.
After our race we watched the Cat 1-2-3 which Billy raced. Billy’s parents were there too, Ms. Shelly and Coach Pete. We also met Mr. Tom Lucarelli and took the above picture with him. Mr. Tom and his partner Mr. Phill Castaldi sponsor so many races in the New York City area and Ms. Shelly told us that we wouldn’t have that many races without them – so thank you very much Mr. Phil and Mr. Tom!
Will definitely try (very hard) to make it back to Branchbrook again.
