Hello internets! We know this blog has been quite quiet as of late, but our very own Lydia Hausle has taken it upon herself to write a much needed (and very modest) race report for the world to enjoy:
So, one day last week Mr. Ben EA pointed out that we have done an atrocious job of reporting back to the team about how we’ve been doing and how much FUN we’ve been having all season long. This is a bad thing for 2 reasons: 1. It doesn’t give everyone on the weekends who ride their bikes REALLY HARD any of their well deserved recognition, and 2. It doesn’t create much excitement or incentive for all you back home, the idea being that if you all see and hear how great it’s going, you might be more inclined to come along (which you should! ‘Cause we want you to!)
That said, here it goes:
To set the scene for you all, the Lux et Velocitas weekend featured a TON of racing, with both ECCC races and USAC races being held (there were even scooter/skateboarder/roller blader races!). The road race and ITT forced us all to pull out the big watts in order to pedal up to the top of East Rock, the most feared rock in all of New Haven. The Crit was, if I do say so myself, awesome. Not too technical, but with some great corners that you could take at wicked fast speeds.
This was an extra exciting weekend because there were a ton of firsts. We had David Villari joining us for his first weekend of bike racing, and he smashed it, taking first place in all three of his races (ITT, Crit, and Circut)! Other firsts included Emily Welch’s first weekend in the Women’s C field. Even after taking a fall in the road race on Saturday, Emily picked up her bruisedego knees and put on her game face for not one but TWO criterium races on sunday. Jordan, after what seems like nearly a full season of unfortunate mechanicals and otherwise unavoidable mishaps, finally had a weekend where his bike didn’t prevent him from completing (and doing really well in) his races. In the monstrosity that is the Men’s D field (over 60 racers), Jordan took 12th in the uphill ITT, 15th in the road race, and an awesome 4th place in the crit. It was epic, to say the least. Other highlights for the weekend included some impressive results by Webb in the Men’s C road race (who by the way was incredibly stoic about it; I spent the better half of an afternoon with him on the top of East Rock, and he never once mentioned that he finished 8th in the race – Well done Dr. Long). After not feeling so hot during Saturday’s races (next time you’ll know not to eat so much hummus!), Mike Callahan had good strong legs for the Men’s B Crit on Sunday, and proceeded to take an impressive number of incredible photos throughout the weekend (be sure to look out for an album on Fbook). Our Men’s A riders (Ben, Preston, Matt), have all been through some pretty ridiculous racing this season, with disturbingly high average miles per hour in all their races, and some serious team tactics creating some very difficult race situations (ummm, MIT has some outrageous riders). This week was no exception, but I’ve got to say, I was pretty proud of all our Men’s A kids, trudging through like champs. Preston held on to the field throughout the entirety of the road race, and all three battled the heavy blocking by MIT in the crit on sunday, with all three guys finishing in the top half of the ECCC’s most competitive field of over 60 riders (Preston, 12th, Matt, 29th, and Ben, 34th). As for myself, I enjoyed my last weekend in Women’s C [EDIT: Enjoyed = Destroyed, then preceded to get 2nd in the USAC Women’s Cat 4], and will be heading into next weekend with every intention of getting shelled off the back of the Women’s B field almost immediately!! It’s going to be gnarly.
Was that too long? I hope not. Anyway, the last order of business is as follows:
There was a really nasty occurrence this weekend involving the theft of 11 bikes out of Harvard’s van in their hotel lot. I’d like us all to just take a minute to reinforce what we already know: that these machines that we ride are valuable, and we need to be watching out not only for our own stuff, but for everyone’s things on weekends (and everywhere else) and we should be taking precautions. Let’s all just be grateful that we were staying at the oh so fancy Econolodge this weekend, but not be so naive as to think that couldn’t happen to us.
Happy riding! See you all this weekend
