Schenectady Tuesday Night Race Series - IV

The fourth and final race in the Schenectady Tuesday Night Race Series was last night. The format was changed from 4 laps (16 miles) to 3 laps (12 miles), to allow for awards and enough daylight riding. I had mixed feelings about this, because I liked tracking my progress each week. But, I also knew that I could ride a little faster; without worrying about running out of steam. I also knew that a lot of other riders would be thinking the same thing and the pace was going to be a bit quicker.

Strangely enough, this week there were nearly double the amount of riders from the last couple of weeks. As a result, the line up and start was really clustered. I ended up somehow getting in the back of the middle group at the beginning. There were just so many riders, there wasn't much I could do. On top of this, I found out that more Pro level riders had showed up.

We start off and right away I could tell that there were some riders who had bit off more than they could chew and lined up too close to the front. At the very beginning there were a lot of riders trying to get around each other and being a little ridiculous about it. I even saw two guys right in front of me literally elbowing and yelling at each other trying to get in front.

Something I feel that I've learned doing these races is that regardless of where I end up in the line up, I eventually will get around the slower or weaker riders. And, those better than me will end up getting past me at some point.

During this first lap I was extremely patient when I was behind a slower rider and just waited for them to mess up on a technical feature or slow down too much going uphill. I would then just crank it out and pass them.

I ended up getting around the two guys elbowing each other really quickly when they both messed up on a technical feature. I passed a few other people at other points and then it was open terrain. I caught up with the 3 guys that I've been chasing all series long, and one other rider. Sure enough we all ended up together, tailing one another and pushing really hard. I knew this week that I really needed to make it a goal to stay with them. I ended up in the back of this pack and we all held a really quick pace into the first lap at 24 minutes.

Going in to the second lap, the two guys at the front started to gain some distance. This is where I normally start to mess up or slow down. Sure enough, I slipped on a skinny plank and flipped over my bars (getting completely covered in mud). I jumped up, got back on the bike and worked really hard to catch up to the guys in the second lap. I ended up making up the distance and by the end of that second lap, I passed one of the guys. It was me and one other guy left who was definitely at my pace and level of riding. We stayed with each other the entire third lap, riding really hard until the end.

I ended up finishing one second behind him, in 12th for the night. After I rolled in, the guys that I was riding close to and myself, stood around and talked about how much fun it was. It was a great feeling and a great, fun ride.

My time was 1:16 for the 12 miles, which is a personal best for me. In the overall series standings (results here) I finished tied for 9th place. I'm pretty happy about this, considering my mechanical in the first race and that my goal going into this series was to place in the top ten. After looking at the results and talking to some other folks, the first 6 guys are all Pro. Which means out of the 26 total riders, 2o were Sport class. And I was probably in the upper-middle (3rd or 4th) for the Sport class. Good stuff. No pics.