The CRCA Lucarelli & Castaldi Club Race #5 was a long one, 7.7 laps for a total of about 77 km. One of my longest ones yet! The race finished by the Tavern On The Green. What made this race different from the other CRCA races this season was the points race format. Every lap, the first five riders would get points 5,4,3,2,1. This changed the dynamic of this race. Instead of surges at random places, we went fast throughout most of the course and this led to a rather high pace, 41.9 km/h per my Strava.
The moment the start-whistle blew, everyone began riding at a very fast pace. The two big teams, Dave Jordan Racing and NYCC, got to the front immediately. On the 2nd lap, a breakaway of two riders got off the front that stuck for the rest of the race. This meant that the field could only contest for three of the points. Regardless, I still went for sprints on the second and third laps, placing 4th and 5th in the field sprints, respectively. I eventually gave up on getting points and sat in the peloton trying to conserve my energy and during that time I believe more breakaways formed. Leading up to the final sprint, I maneuvered my way through the pack to get to about the 20th position. With 200 meters to go, I started sprinting and ended up getting about 10th in the field sprint and overall 28th out of 60.
This was a fun race. However, I have to get a little more used to the points race format. This reminds me that my first ever CRCA was a points race too – it was March 25th last year and I got dropped in the B field on the second lap (the blog post is here). What a difference a year can make! Can’t wait to see what the next year will bring.
The above picture was taken by Ms. Celine from Bicycle Racing Pictures during one of the intermediate point lap sprints. Love that picture so much – thank you very much Ms. Celine.
And, yes, Max sat this race out. The 5:30 start was a little early for him and he didn’t feel like waking up at 4:00.
Oh, here is the GoPro footage of my race. It didn’t come out to well as a lot of dirt from the road covered the lenses. Got some dirt on my face too which you can see in the last picture below when you zoom in on it. In Central Park this dirt can be anything, including horse poo.
