The Coney Island Crit was super well organized and the course was lots of fun, just 860 meters long, nearly flat, and with three corners. I raced the 20-minute junior field and Ari raced the Cat 4/5 which was 40 minutes. Unfortunately it was raining during our races, but that didn’t matter much to us while riding but did matter a lot afterwards as we got super cold super quickly.
Ari’s Cat 4/5
Ari’s race was first and he rode 30 laps in quite heavy rain. There was a break-away of two at the start of the second lap but he caught it on the fourth lap with two other riders. For the remainder of the race, Ari was with the front group which had between three and seven riders. Ari was the first to enter the last lap with six riders behind him. At that time he wanted to drop back some to not lead anyone out and at the same time a massive attack was launched which all six others riders followed. He reacted a little late but also couldn’t find a place to fit in the paceline. Ari looked so strong throughout the race and I really thought he would make it on the podium, but because of the last lap, he placed 7th out of the 19th that finished the race. The GoPro footage of his race is on our YouTube channel. Ari initially planned to also race the Junior race with me but he was so cold after his race in the rain that he wasn’t up to it.
My Junior Race
But, my Star Track teammates Hanna and Will (who are siblings too) raced with me. We had 13 laps where the first one was neutral. Once we went off neutral, Julian made an attack and passed me before the first corner and Daniel after the second corner. We used to be teammates but now they are on Dave Jordan so we didn’t work together (also, they are three years older and much stronger riders). For the remaining 11.5 laps, I just went solo, hit my 10-minute all-time power high as I wanted to make sure that I wouldn’t get lapped, and finished first in my age category and 3rd / 10th overall after the Borrero twins. The GoPro recording of my race is here.
Afterwards
After our races we watched the P/1/2/3. Our Star Track teammate Jayden competed as well as Billy who races for Good Guys on the road (but he’s our teammate on the track). They were going so fast. We also chatted with Ms. Shelly, had podium, and were just hanging out and having a good time.
Thank you Alex & Biker Jun
This was a super awesome race – thank you so much Alex Kochatau from Verrazano Team Racing. Hope you’ll have another Coney Island Crit soon and we’ll be there. Also greatly appreciate that you are so generous to juniors by giving us big discounts.
Also many thanks to Jun Aishima (Biker Jun) who took the above picture. Love it so much! Many more of his absolutely awesome photos are on Facebook and Instagram. My dad made the below pictures – you be the judge.
