…Like a swift Belgian Waffle Iron to the Face

Yeah, two weekends ago was pretty much like that.

I know I’m way behind on this, but give me a break.  I do go to school too, you know…

This past weekend the ECCC and the Atlantic Corridor became Little Belgium.  Cold and clammy weather, torrential downpour and gale force winds.  It was a beyond horrific, but still the few and the brave raced and raced to immortality.

Hurricane Jens Voigt was a brutal one.  The weather steadily worsened through the day.  Oh luck me, having the second-to-last race of the day.  By the time the Men’s A raced, it seemed that we had 42 degrees F, ___ mph sustained winds with gusts at 50+ mph, and rain pouring down at an inch per minuet.  Andrew from Pitt reckoned it was a Jens Factor 5, but my data puts it on the line with if not into the Jens HC category.  Definitely suicidal, and a spacesuit would have been fantastic.


To add to the Belgian-like atmosphere: waffles, the Belgian kind.  Thanks to an absolutely prime parking spot by BU Cycling, we managed to wrangle the Waffles and Dinges van to park directly in front of us by the race course.  Oh man…the smell of that malted Belgian waffle mix coming through the vents of the Jank Tank, just pristine.

There’s not much to say about the race itself other than that it was horrible, as you can imagine from the weather stats I mentioned above.  There were times at which I couldn’t see the front of the peloton.  Numerous times I could hear every rider in the peloton grunt out guttural obscenities after Turn 1 as the the winds smacked us headfirst.  39 starters, only 29 finishers.  It didn’t seem to matter how you did, you got wicked props for just starting.

Sunday the weather was far better.  We rolled out of Natan’s house nice and early and got to the races around 9:45 am.  The start of the Men’s 3/4 race was pushed back to 10:30 and suddenly there was a quick impulse between Natan, Matt, and myself to signup for the 3/4 race.  It was a good things I brought my GLV kit, so I threw that on got to work with my Green Line Velo boys.

Boring Race Report Section below

3/4 Race


The field wasn’t very large at all.  GLV had 5 guys (AJ, Gregg, Mark, Collin, and myself) in kit, which was about a quarter of the field.  Right from the start, AJ clipped in quick and gunned it to a 5-6 lap solo breakaway. 


The team was blocking excellently and neutralizing most attempts to catch AJ until one lap where things slightly fell apart and Natan and Max (UPenn) attacked and broke away.  AJ was back in the fields soon after the attack fro the two riders.  With one lap to go, Natan and Max were still off the front.  Theeman was on the front trying to keep the pace high and reel them in.  While the pace was quick, I was feeling good and had an open lane on the right going through the start/finish.  I sprinted from halfway back in the peloton zipping past Theeman towards Natan and Max with two possible outcomes: 1) I would be able to bridge up to the two leaders; or 2) I would pull the whole field along with me.  Either outcome would have been good for GLV.  So I ended up dragging the whole field with me and before trading off the now even quicker pace to someone else to save up for the sprint.

We finished reeling in Natan and Max just before the finish line, much to each of their surprise.  I remember their two faces when they looked back and saw Izzo, myself and others power-sprinting towards them.  Natan held it off for the win however, with Max in 2nd.  Izzo got 5th and myself 6th.  It was a good race and it was definitely way more fun than work.


The Men’s A Race
The very very short and sweet: we did what we set out to do and it felt amazing.  We went in with the plan of being aggressive, countering certain attacks, letting others go…  UVM went right from the gun – not a surprise.  The course was a good one, however, good and windy for a breakaway to hide on.  Matt and I did work on the front every once in a while, getting cycled to the back of the pack ever once in a while.  There was a great ally on the left hand side of the road on the backside of the course that was amazing to move up through.  A number of UVM riders would always be sitting back there and use the ally to move up each lap and then attack or block.  It didn’t take too long to figure out that they were doing this, and I took it upon myself to counter-what I could.

The end of the race was similar to that of the 3/4 race: a bunch sprint.  UVM was desperate for something at the end after their failed attempts at breakaways (of which one I did a lot of work to help bring back in) and started to lead out the whole field.  Matt, Natan, and I were all poised in good position for the sprint.  Lee Peters was on my right for the straitaway when the sprint started.  I remember his derailleur being eatten by someone’s wheel and he started to fade back.  I put myself on Matt’s wheel and we weasled our way through the pack.  Natan didn’t quite have the win, but then again Sean Whiteman has one nasty friggin sprint.  UVM lead BU to 3 in the top-10; the closest they got was 12th.  Thanks, guys. 






Town line sprints seemed to have paid off...for now.