Race Report: CRCA's 2024 Season Opener
After an early start to the season, CRCA’s season opener this past Sunday was the third official road race on the NYC calendar this year. As a newer racer and Cat 4, I raced the B field which will be our focus here.
Turnout was surprisingly good given how early in the season it was combined with a downpour we’d the day before (more on that later). The B field had 40 guys on the start line with representation from most of the CRCA teams (NYCC, Dave Jordan, Skratch / Ostroy to name a few). With most of TBD in Brooklyn, it was a hard sell to commute cross-borough for what would be a very wet early season race. As such, I was waving the maroon and navy TBD flag solo for this one.
The conditions
We’ll start with the conditions since they were the biggest factor in Sunday’s race. The day before the race, the city saw over an inch of rain continuing into the evening. Fortunately, precipitation had stopped a few hours before the race, giving the tarmac time to dry. Nonetheless, things were soddened. Even though it took me longer than I’d hoped in the morning to get my Velotoze on, my feet and I were glad to have them when I started riding to the race.
Since the rain had washed away most of the grime from the road surface, the course didn’t feel noticeably slick. However, you could tell everyone was concerned about sliding out. We took corners more gingerly than usual. The sharp turn on the descent before Harlem Hill, narrowed to half the width by construction, kept me up the night before, but the field navigated it without incident.
As someone who’d fallen victim to the dreaded horse-manure-induced gastroenteritis in the fall, I was rightfully wary all of the horse droppings that could be kicked up onto my bottles and into my mouth in the pack when things were this wet. While I spent much of the race with some amount of sand and grit in my mouth, I luckily made it out without succumbing to the modern equivalent of dysentery.
Minus the wet conditions, it was a great day to race. It was overcast and in the mid 40s when the race started. The sun shone when we finished.
all photos credit to Bicycle Racing Pictures
The race
Okay enough about the pavement and the rain, onto the racing.
The B field was scheduled for 5 laps around the park, but was shortened to 4 due to an unforeseen delay (EMTs were busy helping someone further up on the course at start time).
If I was to describe the race in two words it would be ‘failed breakaways.’ Over an hour of racing, we had on the order of 5-10 breakaway attempts, with 1-4 riders in each. All were eventually brought back and no one managed to pull away from the pack. This was likely more due to the nature of the course than the composition of the breaks (several had motivated riders from a mix of teams).
Aside from chasing down breaks, the pack stayed together by and large. We surged up Harlem Hill and Cats Paw, and caught our collective breath in the moments after.
While there were not major crashes, a few riders pile up midway through the race climbing Cats Paw. Fortunately, not one of the high-speed crashes we fear as road racers.
The ultimately race came down to the bunch sprint up Cats Paw after a fast descent, with riders jockeying for position as we approached the final hill.
The apres
Despite my bike and me being covered in mud, the rest of the day was too nice of a reprieve from the Feb / March cold not to join the team for a ride over the GWB. Team regrouped to grab a coffee and rode off into the sunny high-50s March Sunday, shedding arm warmers as we went.
Conclusion
Despite the wet conditions and the deep clean my bike needed post-race, this was a great way to kick off CRCA racing for 2024. I heard more than a few racers refer to Sunday as feeling like “the first day of school.” The B field brought a solid race with lots of breaks and chasing. Looking forward to the rest of what will be my first full road racing season. I’ll report back along the way.
Aficionado of all things tarmac, carbon, and bean juice. Racing road for TBD
