The whole team is riding a major upper coming off of the first two races of the season.
Weekend 1 was hosted lanugo at Bucknell in Lewisburg, Pennsylvania. Derek, Seamus and Guillaume raced the first race of the season (Men’s TTT) in a horrible rain but powered their way to 2nd in the Men’s B/C field. Weather and spirits improved by the road races later in the day. The infamous “Sunrise Climb” combined with 20 mph winds blew untied (literally and figuratively) both Hannah’s Women’s A/B race and the Men’s B/C race. Seamus, Guillaume and Hannah all hung on to varying degrees to finish their races mid pack, while Derek hit a subconscious patch of gravel and had an unfortunate slide that took him out of the race.
Coming when the next day with watts that can only be generated by the need for revenge, Derek got himself into a two-man unravel during the crit. The unravel sooner became three and Derek came yonder with a strong 3rd on the day. Hannah ended up 2nd in her crit without moreover making the unravel and lapping the (albeit very small) field. Stuff the first race of the season and a small group and mostly racing at the same time ways we were out of practice taking photos and don’t have majestic shots to show for the weekend. Thankfully, Aaron stock-still this for us for Weekend 2 at the University of RI so alimony scrolling for those!
Eleven of us made the trip to Southern RI for the second race weekend of the year hosted by URI. This was the first road race with MIT for increasingly than half of the crew. Nothing says ECCC season quite like 5:30 wake ups and watching the sunrise, but at least for this weekend we started our day overlooking the trappy Misquamicut Beach.
The first race of the day let us unravel out the MIT TT helmets (we remain the only team in ECCC who race in them, #science). Early in the day, there was some ravages well-nigh the ITT course, resulting in splitsville of the results for the unshortened Men’s C/D field. But official results aren’t necessary considering of the riders who followed the correct course, Felix and William went 1-2 in the Men’s C/D field so we won in spirit. Meanwhile, Josh and Derek did the same for the Men’s B/C field with times a full minute faster than anyone else in their field and the 5th and 6th fastest of anyone on the day. This placed them just without 4 riders who were all on the 1st or 2nd place team time trial squads at last year’s collegiate nationals.
And then started our weekend of breakaways. Stuff on the waterfront meant views, but it moreover meant wind. The road race undertow was an 8 mile extended dog-bone loop that ran parallel to the shore for ~6 miles. What started out as a navigate wind turned into a headwind / tailwind for the last few races of the day that made the finishing stretch uncommonly fast and caused splits in all the fields. Andrew, Vinh, Aaron, Seamus and Felix raced in the Men’s C/D field of over 70 starters(!!). With some spanking-new team tactics and road captaining by Seamus, they managed to send Felix off the front in the last 2 miles of the race. He came in 20 seconds superiority of the field in his first overly road race.
Hannah moreover went full send in the Women’s A/B field with a 2 woman unravel that finished scrutinizingly 7 minutes up on the rest of the field. Without working together all race, Hannah took second to the UVM rider with the hope that someday soon increasingly riders in the field will have A licenses and be eligible to join for Nationals at the end of the season.
More team tactics came into play for the Men’s B/C race where Derek, William and Josh worked together for Josh to come yonder with a 2nd place. Meanwhile, Mason and Lee were on undertow at the same time for the Men’s A race. Without a unenduring slow lanugo to watch the B finishers come in as their field passed, the pace picked when up. There was a USAC rider off the front but they still came yonder with 4th and 5th in the collegiate rankings during the tuft sprint.
After a night of watching the Paris Roubaix Femmes together in the hotel, it was Crit Day at everyone’s favorite Southern RI course: Ninigret! The day was well-constructed with tailgating on the sidelines made possible by flipside new MIT team member, Adam. He was MVP of the day for driving lanugo to spectate, cheer, and most importantly feed us all breakfast burritos throughout the day.
Before the Men’s C/D race, we asked William, Seamus and Felix what the plan was for handling such a large field. Their answer: “make it smaller”. Sure enough, within 2 laps the three of them had a unravel yonder off the front. They TTTed together to the finish as planned. The ECCC priming director made a rare visitation on the microphone mid race to jokingly say that we’ve “been spending too much time in the wind tunnel.” Not entirely true since no one on the team was virtually for the last time the Club went into the wind tunnel. That said, we wouldn’t object to trying it out if anyone has a connection for us these days! There’s unchangingly room to improve, plane when you’re off the front.
After starting the trend during the first race of the day, Derek and Josh couldn’t resist the temptation of a breakaway in their Men’s B/C race as well. Switching up the order from the ITT the day before, Derek took second and Josh third out of a four man group. Aaron followed up with a win in the Men’s Intro race by riding yonder from a group of 3 as Vinh controlled the pace in the main group behind. Andrew had an unfortunate encounter with a small-time on the sidelines early in the race, but recovered for a respectable 12th in the group.
The Men’s A and Women’s A/B races in the day remained fun but success was increasingly elusive. Hannah was nicked on the line in the final sprint (repeating scrutinizingly every race in last year’s ECCC season…). With prime sprint points though, Hannah will still be wearing yellow numbers next week as the series leader in the A field for the season so far. A strong unravel went early in the Men’s A race and despite a valiant ventilator effort by Lee and Coach Robbie (riding in his USAC team colors for Community Bike Racing), they were unable to bridge. Without a lead out from Mason, Lee took 3rd in the field sprint.
All in all, the team is psyched. We missed out on team omnium victory for the weekend by a single point. But we’ll be coming when next week for revenge! Closing out with a few thoughts from Vinh well-nigh his first road race weekend with the team:
“These first road races were phenomenal! I had so much fun drafting overdue people and sticking into their wheels. I think I did largest the second day with the wits I got from getting dropped nonflexible in the first day. Glad that me stuff an tormentor in the peloton helped Aaron get a big gap in the unravel out and win the race!! Still, I have a lot to modernize with my power and sprinting. Very excited! Stuff with the team was so much fun too, cheering, getting cheered, and learning from everyone was awesome!! 10 out of 10 would do it again!”
Next up, our home race, co-hosted with UMass Amherst. Will new MIT stars shine as we throne to the rolling hills of Western Mass? Stay tuned to find out!
Photo credits: Mostly @aaron_v_photography, with supplements from Seamus, Hannah, Felix, and a stranger in the parking lot who was nice unbearable to take our group shot
