Always awesome to compete in CRCA‘s Central Park road races. Come to think of it, what a privilege to race in one of the most popular parks in the world. This was the third CRCA race this year and we went to all of them. Here’s our post for the second race (didn’t find the time to write one for the first).
Ari’s Cat 4/5 Race
This felt like the hardest CRCA race I’ve ever done although it wasn’t my fastest as I “just” averaged 40.3 km/h over 5.2 laps (52 km) per my Strava. Perhaps I was just tired, I honestly I don’t know. Throughout the race, I stayed mid-pack and sometimes I moved towards the front. The race wasn’t as surgey as the previous races, but the field just drilled the pace the whole time. On the third lap, many riders were aggressively moving up on Cat’s Paw Hill. Knowingly, I sprinted on the right side of the road and was in contention to join any promising breakaways; unfortunately no one made anything happen. For the remainder of the race, I sat towards the back of the field and wasn’t in position for the long sprint on Engineer’s Gate. I saw some opportunities to move up but was too tired to take any chances. On the sprint finish straight, there were two cop cars on the right so everyone had to sprint left. I got boxed in at the very end and rolled in for 30th place out of 61 (two riders got disqualified probably for riding in the joggers lane).The recording of my race is on our YouTube channel here.
Want to give a huge shoutout to Santiago from the Imperium Elite race team who watches our race videos and gives tons of great feedback. Thank you so much Santiago!
Oh, and yes, my hair looked totally crazy when I took off my helmet – see the last picture below. Reverse hat hair, I guess.
Max’s Cat 5 Race
My race was a 4-lap 40km race. It was a tough one. The first lap was pretty chill with some riders going off the front but I knew it would not stick and I stayed with the pack. During the second lap the field picked the pace up with an attack up Harlem Hill and this got everybody fairly tired and the pack slowed down again. On the third lap, there was another attack up Harlem Hill but this time the field didn’t slow down but stretched out a lot and we either went single file or double file. On the last lap the pace was still hard and I was struggling to stay on; after Harlem Hill, however, we got neutralized because the Cat 1/2/3 were passing us and I had a chance to recover but the dropped riders were catching up. Strangely, they kept us neutral for several minutes until we had about ½ lap to go. Then things started to heat up and when we got to Cat’s Paw hill, the pace started to pick up dramatically and right before the last turn everybody started their sprint but I was gassed. I came in 14th out of 21 and since I was the youngest rider in my field, I am happy with the result.
I recorded my race and the footage is on YouTube. Jason from Major Taylor raced with me and he recorded his race too – this clip is taken from his YouTube channel and shows me sprinting down Harlem Hill on the third lap. It’s actually nicer to be seen in other racers’ videos than seeing your own recordings!
