A New England Masters Cycling Team

Chainbiter - Because of my duties working the race and an unforeseen icy patch on the course that needed everybody's full attention, I got no warm-up for my race. I had a 6th-ish row start position. Not horrible but not good. I had to break-check a couple of times from the whistle to the first bend - a stretch of less than 200 yards. By the time we got off the pavement and onto the dirt road I was in the 70s if not 80s. The lack of warm up hurt me in that first lap. In the past with a good warm up I've made up huge ground on the climb to the top of the course and on any wide open riding sections. I rode a clean race and just moved up when I could. I managed 32nd which surprised me given where I was on the first lap and how I felt.

Northhampton - I had a 5th row start position. Guys got together in front of me but didn't take anybody down. I'll rate the start as OK on the Floppenbruggeren Scale of Cyclocross Starts which everyone knows is - Very Bad, Bad, OK, Good and Very Good. By the start of the 2nd lap I was in a good group that was making up ground on riders and separating from the riders behind. Until the last lap I think only 1 rider came back to us but we went through 5 or 6. I rode a pretty good race. With 3 to go I had my best lap - really cornering well and pushing it out of the corners which worked to drop a couple of guys and hurt the rest. Brian Cantele was with me and commented how well I was cornering. On the last lap Curtis Bovin caught us and went right through us. By the last third of the last lap it was just me and a Gearworks rider with Brian just behind. I attacked him on the side walk section which leads to the final turn onto the finishing straight to grab 23rd. I was pretty happy with that given my start position. I feel comfortable saying if I had a 1st or 2nd row start position I would have been top 15 - maybe better.