Gate City Cyclone

This past Saturday brought the revival of the Nashua Gate City Cyclone Criterium. Located up in Nashua, NH this race was first held many years ago, but fell off the calendar in recent years. The race was revived this year to compliment a stage finish of the Montreal-Boston Stage Race. When M-B folded, Gate City stayed on the calendar.

Working alongside us at Nashua was Richard Fries, announcer extroidenaire. We've worked a ton of races with Richard over the years, and after all this time it's goes like clockwork. Which is nice, because it's kind of that time of year where the work routine can start to feel like a rut. Working with the same familiar crew each week is great, because it lowers everyones stress level. With all of the little things that go wrong at the races each week, it's nice to know the rest of that staff can handle it. From missing start sheets, to crashes, to cars on the course, an experienced crew can keep the train chugging along no matter what comes down the tracks.

Poughkeepsie Criterium

It says something that we've worked this race enough that it's possible to spell Poughkeepsie correctly without even thinking about it... Saturday brought the criterium half of the Alec Stall Memorial Weekend. This year the construction downtown is finally finished (or at least moved past the course) so it was possible to return to the old course- minus the chicane that has caused havoc in the past. This year it was a pretty straightforward criterium that favored strong riders who could handle the wind.

The ride of the day went to Anna Milkowski- breaking away from the gun, dragging two other riders with her, then dropping them en route to lapping the field solo. Look out Altoona- Anna is coming!!

Hartford Crit v2 and New Britain

After having a week off from results work we jumped right back in with a double weekend of criteriums. It was a nice way to ease back into the scene since both races are New England standards. The Hartford Round the Park Crit was a little different this time- with Attleboro moving later in the year due to Masters Nationals the guys from the Nerac squad stepped up to fill the gap with another crit around Bushnell park in Hartford. They decided to mix it up a bit and ran the course in reverse- which was a bonus for us since we got to set up in the shade for once!

Downtown crit races are always interesting, and not just because of the bike racing- there's always something going on that makes you either laugh or wince- this time it was the kid bombing down the start finish stretch on a huffy- while talking on a cell phone. Fortunately he zipped by moments before the field came hauling around the corner. Those guys in the 30+ race have no idea how close they came to disaster...

The New Britain Criterium is another great regional tradition- the course is host to 2 or 3 races every year. And when you have a great closed course you can run a lot of races during the day- Sundays race had 12 different races. It's great to have that opportunity because it means that a lot of categories that would normally be run together like the Masters 60/70+ and the Women 4 can have their own race. Kudos to Mark and the guys at Anthem CCCC for making this happen!

As the day got underway there was one unusual thing- we had no neutral support for half of the first race. Merlin and the SRAM car were driving up to the race from Pennsylvania and got stuck in traffic behind an accident. So switching over to caravan driving mode Merlin slipped into the breakdown lane and drove (the opposite way on the highway) until he found an exit and could bypass the accident and the stopped traffic. When you look official I guess you can get away with just about anything!!

Ninigret Part Three

Saturdays NBX Bikes Criterium at Ninigret Park kicked off a great weekend of racing in Rhode Island. This was our third trip of the year to Ninigret- and finally the sun was out! This spring's races had everything but sun. In April we had rain, hail and even snow, and at this race last year there were torrential downpours. That day it was more fun to play in the puddles than race bikes.

But on Saturday there were blue skys and sun- a perfect day for racing. Ninigret is a rare treat in that it's a purpose built race course, completely closed to traffic. There are a few weekend races each year, plus a weekly training series, and it's a stage in MCRA's Bob Beal Masters Stage Race. The park is a great cornerstone in new England grassroots cycling. And true to the grassroots nature of the park, it was the juniors taking control of the Cat 4 race taking the win and 5th as well. And these were the young juniors too- the winner was 15 year old Manny Gougen. Well done boys!

If you are wondering what riding at Ninigret is like, Murat just posted a video from his race on Saturday. Check it out for an on the bike tour of the course!