Fast Times in NYC: the Harlem Criterium Race Report

words by Lucia D / images by Daghan Perker

Combined Masters Field

I’ve always attended the Harlem Skyscraper Criterium as a spectator or in an event staff support capacity (the year CRCA helped to promote the race), but had never raced it. This had to do with a few reasons: its reputation for higher than normal frequency of crashes (nicknamed the “Skinscraper Classic”), conflict with CRCA club races that same morning (CRCA is given permit dates by NYC Parks so often conflicts are unavoidable). But, the primary reason I haven’t raced Harlem Crit is because, as a non-elite women’s field racer, I didn’t feel like I belonged - there has never been a field for us.

Harlem Skyscraper Criterium was as popular as always.

Historically, there has only been one dedicated Women’s field: the P123 (or Women’s Open if you look back pre 2014). This meant that women who raced at the professional level, like Maggie Coles-Lyster this year’s winner, could be in the same field as a first time crit racer. Clearly not ideal for anyone involved. The only other option for women was to race in the men’s fields, and there were always at least 5 men’s fields. As an experienced racer who races in men’s fields from time to time, I can appreciate their value: you learn to position yourself in a much larger and often more aggressive field, and you get good at drafting & speed work. But for those same reasons, this is an absolutely terrible race experience for most women, especially anyone just starting out.

This year, however, the promoter made a few changes in the field structure that signaled more inclusivity toward women. There was a dedicated W 4/Novice/Community field, a free Women’s-only skills clinic with 3 lap practice race on course, and every combined M/W field such as the Fixed Gear & Masters fields, had separate and equal prize pools instead of a combined prize pool. While the combined M/W field structure still leaves a lot to be desired, having a dedicated amateur race, and having separate scoring/prize pools for women, is the absolute minimum to enable amateur women racers to consider supporting this event. So, in light of these changes, I made the decision to forgo the CRCA club race that morning, and jump into the W Masters 30+ Cat 1-3 race, which was combined with the Men’s Masters race.

Pro Women’s field taking the first turn.

Getting as close as possible to the apex.

My strategy, given this was a combined field with masters men, was to surf wheels and use my drafting & cornering skills to do as little work as possible and try to simply outlast all the other women in the field. There were only 5 of us at the start line (not surprising given the combined field structure), but a mighty bunch. I found the first 5 laps or so to be pretty smooth. I parked myself near the back of the field, with the aim of not braking into any corners, coasting as much as possible, finding good wheels, and trying to get tucked in to avoid the really strong cross winds along the southern end of the course. My data file revealed I did not pedal for about 10 of the 50 minutes or 20% of the race.

At first, I wasn’t paying much attention to what was going on behind me, but as we started seeing other women getting lapped by the field, I turned to look and saw that Leah was glued to my wheel. Good - we’d secured spots on the podium. The last 8 or so laps saw a lot of surging & bunching, and I found myself closing gaps being opened by riders slowly falling off the pace. In hindsight, this was when I should have made more of an effort to move further up the pack, to avoid these mini bridge efforts, or asked Leah to come around and trade some pulls. There was one minor crash with about 5 to go that led to an acceleration, but I hung on. Finally with 2 laps remaining, I found myself struggling to close a gap into the last turn. I shouted back over my shoulder to Leah to try to warn her so she wouldn’t also get caught out. Leah came around me, but I was not able to grab her wheel, and I suddenly found myself dangling about 10 bike lengths behind the field. The whole lap played out in slow motion in my head where I was trying to will myself to catch back on - “Lucia - just give it 10-15 hard pedal strokes out of the saddle and you’re there!”, but I had nothing left in the tank. With 1 to go, the rubberband finally snapped, and the follow moto passed me as the field raced out of sight. I ended up rolling through the finish straight solo, but managed a slow form sprint to save face for the fans - thank you for the cheers everyone! Leah hung in with the field for the win, and I came through 2nd.

Fast, fast, fast.

Team directors are watching and encouraging from sidelines.

My experience was overall a positive one. My average speed for the race was 26.4mph, and that I managed to hang on pretty comfortably for most of the race despite some major tail-gunning mistakes left me excited for next year, feeling confident I would be able to hold my own in the WP123 field. We still have more work to do to make this event truly equitable and inviting for women and gender non-conforming folks, but the investments being made now are hopefully setting us up for more moves in the right direction in the near future.

The Harlem Skyscraper Classic is such an important race on our national racing calendar. The course takes place around Marcus Garvey Park in the middle of Harlem, on Father’s Day and on/around Juneteenth, and the event is a cornerstone in the New York City bike racing community - one of the most vibrant and diverse bike racing towns in the country. All the ingredients are there for the Harlem Crit to be one of the biggest blockbuster racer/spectator/live stream events of the year, and to be the most inclusive. We hope the stakeholders have plans to elevate this race even more in the future, and if they do, I know folks in & connected to the NYC community will gladly lend their support.

Legion pushing in the front.

Maggie Coles-Lyster takes the W.