I headed down to Philly with 5 other Lehigh cyclists Saturday morning early for the TTT. Rob and Tom were doing the intro TTT, and Pat and I were doing the Bs. For never having ridden before as a pair, and for Pat's first collegiate race, we did pretty well. Our main goal was to keep rotating smoothly.
The circuit race was fun, I really like that course. Some long straight fast sections, some tighter sections with a roundabout near the finish, and a little hill at the turn around. Somewhere in the very beginning a rider got away, and it wasn't until after the race that I found out who it was. I asked around in the field, but it seems that no one else knew either. Turns out it was Aaron Snyder. At first I wasn't concerned, I figured that the long straight windy sections would bring back a solo effort, but after two laps when the gap had grown to almost a minute, some of us started trying to organize the chasing effort.
We never really got organized, we'd have a few good pulls, and then things would fall apart and the pace would slow again. I took a few turns at the front, mostly on the hill sections, but after 3 laps when it didn't look like we were going to bring him back, I decided to sit in more and wait until the end. There were a few more attacks, hoping to take advantage of an unorganized field, but nothing really got far.
Coming down the downhill after the S/F line, I found myself at the front leading the way past the hay bales. That was probably a good place to be as somewhere behind me I heard the sound of bikes and crunching hay bales. I'm not sure what happened, and I didn't look back.
Positioning for the finish was going to be tricky, there was a 90 degree right hand turn into a single lane climb with hay bales on the left, followed by a short false flat, and then the 3/4 of a roundabout into the finishing straight. Before the turn up the last hill, I found myself several rows back, and I was sure I'd get totally boxed in on the climb if I stayed there. I used a big effort to try and get near the front before the climb started, but it was probably too much of an effort too late. I had a decent position by the top, but then I lost a bunch of spots before the roundabout, and had nothing for any sprint at the end. I rolled in at the back of a relatively small group of a dozen or so. In hindsight, I would have been better off getting to the front sooner, but I don't know how I could have gotten any where without swarming the yellow line. It would have been worth hitting the wind on the straight section just to be in position for the climb without having to accelerate there.
Still, another good day of racing, and a crit to look forward to tomorrow. The rest of the day was spent hanging out in Philly with my friend Sheila, drinking tea, going to this crazy sculpture garden place, and eating awesome Ethiopian food.
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