So glad to be back at Prospect Park for the Lucarelli & Castaldi Cup #5. Prospect Park is one of our favorite local courses because it is really fast and the roads are super smooth since they just repaved them. Plus it takes us just 25 minutes to get there and we always find parking. It was nice that it was already somewhat bright when we arrived shortly before 5:00 and we didn’t even have to use our bike lights for our warm-up on the course.
Max’s Cat 5 Race
My race had five laps for a total of about 27 km per my Strava. My Star Track teammates Alvin, Hugo, Lucian, and Viv were racing with me in the Cat 5. It was a huge field with 66 racers! And let me tell you, it was sketchy. There was a lot of tire tapping, brake checking, overtaking in the joggers’ lane, and one guy even super-tucked a downhill. The race started fast and our times for the first two laps were even quicker than those of the Cat 3/4. Afterwards the field slowed down, however. At the finish, everyone started sprinting and I ended up in 30th place out of 65 (one rider got disqualified). The GoPro footage of my race is here.
Ari’s Cat 3/4 Race
My race had 9 laps, was 50 km long, 80 riders started with me, and was quite fast as I averaged 43.1 km/h per Strava. My teammate Logan was in my field as he just upgraded to Cat 4. Wasn’t the perfect day to race for me as I had a slight cold but I wanted to go as I like the Prospect Park races so much.
The game plan was to preserve as much energy as possible in the first seven laps by staying in the top 1/3rd of the field, move near the front on the 8th lap, and on the 9th and final lap to give it a real hard dig on the last hill (which starts about 1 km before the finish and that climb suits me well because of my low weight) and then absolutely gun for the finish sprint.
All worked out perfectly through the 8th lap as I was in sixth position at the start of lap 9. As we continued the 9th lap, however, my legs slowly started to fade. Also, I was positioned in the center of the road with riders to the left and right of me. As the finish neared, riders were passing on the outsides and I was kind of boxed-in and slowly fell back. When it came to the finish sprint after the hill, I was in about 20th position (although I wanted to be at the front at that time) and I knew I wouldn’t make the podium. I still gave it a good dig but didn’t want to risk much by sprinting all-out to get a few spots ahead. I finished 33 out of 78 (there was one DSQ and one DNF). The GoPro recording of my race is on our YouTube channel.
Even though this was far from my best finish at Prospect Park, I was quite happy with my race in that all but the last lap went as planned. Next time, I’ll try to be more in the center of the road when I try to preserve energy, but on the last lap I’ll try to stay more towards the sides so that it’ll be earlier to move up.
