Mens A

Womens A

TTT: As mentioned previously, this race had an inadequate porta pottie:cyclist ratio. Ugh! After waiting in the looong line, Amy, Lisa, Jenna, and I got a chance to warm up a bit on the course (unfortuntately not the entire course, though we'd unknowingly driven it beforehand) before setting out for 14 miles of fun. We started out fast on the windy and surprisingly hilly course, and hit the first 180 smoothly, thanks to a morning of practice on the "Sassler loop". After a bit of identity confusion (apparantly "Jenna" and "Janet" both look and sound alike when in matching jerseys and riding at 20+mph) I dropped off after the second turnaround, sending Amy and Jenna to finish together. They did awesome, placing 4th only 3 seconds behind the 3rd place team and 40 seconds behind the winner.

RR: They weren't kidding about a fast downhill start, were they? After a tense 2 miles of neutral rollout, we turned the corner and started climbing. Well, the pack started climbing. My legs had other ideas. Amy, Lisa, and Jenna got into the main pack while I managed to narrowly avoid an uphill crash (that was weird!) but lost the pack in the first 2 minutes or so of the race. I got to ride 2 laps pretty much all by myself, enjoying the scenery (it's a beautiful park) and saying hello to Mark and Ilana as they circled the course backwards. Meanwhile, the pack split up into several groups that I've heard worked together well through the 3-lap race. I was pulled and placed (19th - 2 points yay!) after 2 laps, so I got to see a terrifying crash that fortunately didn't involve any Harvard riders (and I've heard Princeton is banged up but okay). Amy, Jenna, and Lisa finished strong at 7th, 9th, and 17th. Ed got an impressive sunburn - check out his head if you get a chance.

Crit: This will hopefully have been Muffy's last race and it was a good one. Pam gave us an awesome warm-up for our race while the rest of HUCA stood around and ate ziti (thanks, Sohia's mom!). All nice and warm, we reported to the start line. To wait. And wait. And ride a few laps around the course. And wait. There were two scary crashes in the Men's A and it took quite a while to get the ambulances in and out. We were running late by that point, so they shortened our race by 5 minutes. That's sure to get us home earlier! But it was okay, as the rain held off entirely. I sat in and watched for most of the race while Amy scored major prime points thanks to Jenna's lead-out skills. Funny how many riders are willing to let me sit on their wheel while they do all of the work, but I can't complain! The pack stayed together except for 2 Dartmouth riders who made a break and were never caught. In the end, Amy WON the pack sprint for 3rd! I finished 13th, Jenna 15th (and some primes) and Lisa (recovering from a tough road race) at 22nd.

All in all a fun weekend and a long and rambling race report. I can't wait until next time!

janet

Mens B

Army had to go and mess up a perfectly good Road Race with a perfectly ridiculous finish. A downhill sprint finish - makes sense, if you want to ruin a great course - and a Princeton women's A rider who had a horrible crash in the final sprint. I imagine the start finish is where it was because of the easy access parking, but there has to be somewhere better. I can't complain too much because it was my highest finish of the season, 10th place, but to have all that hard work on the climbs come down to the law of gravity for that finish was pretty frustrating.

Last week's RR at Grafton was ten miles longer but seemed half as hard. The pace on Saturday was very fast from the start. Usually the men's B field starts together, loses one or two riders and then comes down to a group sprint of the remaining 30 - 40 riders. Not so on Saturday. The pack road a pretty solid tempo on the first time up the climb and never relented. As they do in most of the other fields, UVM was the team to control the race. Many other riders got to the front and pushed the pace, but the majority of the race came down to responding to UVM's attacks and their top sandbagger, um, rider trying several times to get away. By the last of three laps UVM had their man off the front and the rest of us were trying to chase him down. Ed would have been proud of my badgering everyone and trying to coordinate a chase that actually caught the guy, but he would have been more proud of how well the UVM guys broke up the rhythm of the chase and blocked for their rider. I think it really came down to the UVM guy not having the legs to hold the break as opposed to us reeling him in which we did about three miles from the end. I was able to lead the pack up the last hill to be right up at the front as we crested the hill for the downhill sprint to the finish. I probably would have been better off being behind someone and trying to get around them at the end, but I figured that it was a moot point since I am so light and I would never pass them anyway. Despite the finish I was happy with how the race went. Dan was still recovering from crashes last week and Mads was in Denmark so I was on my own. I rode strongly on the climbs and helped with the chase so the UVM guy wouldn't walk away with it so all in all it wasn't bad.

The criterium on Sunday was uneventful and not very memorable. My legs were a little flat so I basically sat in the whole day. Tried for one prime and finished about 6th in the sprint and knew that it was going to be a day of hanging on and perhaps some good luck would come my way for positioning in the final few laps. I moved up with two laps to go and was in good position but an Army guy took a really tight line that caused a bunch of us to slow down. That left me in the middle/back of the pack which was where I finished, 21st. It was a fun course and great for spectating.

Congratulations to the team for a great ride. The team's biggest cheerleader, Pam, got her first victory, and just to be sure she totally dominated she won all (I think) the primes. Prior to the race she said she felt terrible. I hope she feels that way for the rest of the year. It was also great to see Amy have so strong a ride on Sunday. Bad luck has cost her the last couple of weeks, and although she missed the winning break, she rode an otherwise perfect race winning three of four primes and winning the pack sprint for 3rd. She deserved that.

Until next week.

Brendan

Womens B

clearly you all have been waiting for this moment with baited breath-- the posting of the highly entertaining and inspirational recap of the experience of the Harvard B Women at West Point this past weekend.
Unfortunately, you are going to have to wait a bit longer... my computer has auspiciously decided to erase my well-composed, edited, and slightly humorous account of the past weekend's events from the perspective of a B rider. As one of the elite few on this team not studying some type of useful math-y/science-y type subject, it may not come as a complete shock that i have no computer skills and can't exactly explain what happened, but i promise that RECAP #2 is already in the works and although it probably won't be better, it might actually get sent before I leave for UVM this weekend :)
sorry!
Pam

Women's B - from the back of the pack Since I'm fighting a bout of insomnia right now, most likely due to my nervousness of doing the actual B-TTTs this weekend without the option of being dropped - I'll help Pam out a bit with the B-Recap since she was off the in the front doing swell and I was hauling my a*s up numerous hills, silently hoping that John would miraculously appear from a magical fog, bedecked all in gold lame to push me up the hill before disppearing again into the air. Why the gold lame, I'm not sure, but I feel like most gaurdian angels often dress in gold lame or pristene white and white would just get dirty during a road race. But yes, the TTT. Well, I got off to a smashing start trying to warm up on my trainer. We've determined that I am biologically incapable of pushing hard until I warm up for about two hours. I planned on setting up a trainer in the lobby of the hotel and spinning at the crack of dawn, but I waited until we got to the gravel pit slash parking lot at Army. I kicked it into high gear and felt my bike slowly but steadily fall to the left, where a second trainer gouged itself into my left thigh, leaving quite a bruise. A few seconds of intense pain followed. Ed ran over asking if I was okay, which I knew I was - nothing was broken except the pain was blinding and I couldn't speak. I think I tried to give a thumbs up of sorts. Back on the trainer a few minutes later with enough adrenaline pumping through my veins to lift a tracker off a baby, I couldn't really get up the nerve to spin much. My thigh was cramping but I promptly ignored the pain and heading off to the TTT. Pam, Robin, Sophia and I shot out of the start like mad - which means I quickly got dropped on the first hill. Robin and Pam though managed to fight it out for a second place - impressive since there were only two of them. I managed to hit 46 on the downhill where I ran out of gears and almost caught up to the Harvard women until another hill sent me off the back again. The 180 turns were cake after the hours of practice we spent going round and round two water bottles. I finished the loop and started bracing for the roadrace. I would love to tell you all about Robin and Pam's kick-ass performance on the roadrace but after breaking for dear life on the downhill from hell, I got toasted on that never-ending uphill. Toasted. I pondered whether I could run up it faster. I swore if I hit 3mph, I would get off and run with my bike. Luckily it never got that bad. I tried to work with a girl - I think from BC or BU - but she wasn't having it. Luckily her speed on the flats was about the same as her speed on the hill so I passed her once the hill had been climbed and resisted the urge to look back, point and go "ha ha!" At some point on a flat I caught up with Sophia who stuck to my wheel for a bit. We both caught up with Mr. Men's D Weymouth. He seemed to be working exactly like me - he's also a pretty big rider and could hammer on the flats and die on the hills and since we were both nowhere near points contention I asked him to work with me. Yeah, no. Fine. I left him too. Unfortunately, on a downhill somewhere I left Sophia. I was sure she would somehow appear like she usually does on the uphill when I slow down and she stays steady but unfortunately I did not see her again. In fact, after that I didn't see ANYONE again. NO ONE. Not one straggler. I usually find other stragglers at some point but there was no one. Chris Akana in the truck was a great cheerleader. However, he also disappeared on the second lap. On the hill, the pacecar was inches from my wheel and I was so afraid they were going to pull me that I hammered like I've never hammered on a hill before. It was ridiculously commical because here I am pushing with all my might MAYBE going 10mph frantically trying to escape a car also maybe going 10mph. It must have looked like slow-mo. Raaawwwrrrr. The rest of the race, I slowed down. I knew I had the energy to finish but I was tired from the wind so I took in the sights. At the feed zone, I threw my warm gloves away because my hands were profusely sweating and the woman standing there looked SO confused. I knew I would probably never see them again, but at that moment, they were so annoying, I would have thrown them over a cliff. Almost at the finish, I'm sort of relaxing and pedaling along until I hear George and Julie cheering. George shouts "finish strong" and I picked it up to the end. I made frantic sprint to the finish on the downhill. It was fantastic and I think I'm finally sleepy. *yawn* I can't wait to hear Pam's tell it like it was in the front.
Mich

Well, clearly I've been slacking in my race reporting skills and there's nothing like a good teammate to pick me up. Thanks Michelle! Anyway, I had pretty much composed most of this, so I'll send it out anyway… but try not to have any expectations, the rest of these reports have been so hilarious I really can't compete!

Game Recap attempt #2:

0700: The Women's B squad arrives with plenty of time for pre-race
festivities: Capasso crashing off the trainer, Kiely finding herself illegally peeing on an exposed cliff in the woods while a humvee rides directly beneath her, Waterman and Kiely tackling half of the killer hill in a warm-up ride while McKinley and Capasso take the smart approach and stick to the trainers.

0815: B TTT takes off, McKinley and Capasso contributing with some quality pulls until the monster hill splits up the Harvard women. Waterman and Kiely conquered the hill together, made a "safe" turn around the orange cones, and began the endless descent, immediately wishing that they had started out a bit slower as the team clearly would have been able to benefit from Capasso's super speedy descending skills. Vision is always 20/20 in hindsight, but even during the race the lead two were constantly reminded of Capasso's strength as she powered solo through the entire course, at one point almost catching Kiely and Waterman, who had to make the decision again not to wait for her again as they saw the strong Penn State close behind. As the 10-mile course turned into a 14-mile course, Kiely struggled to keep pace with super-endurance-triathlete Waterman who was competing in a Harvard jersey for the first time this season. Thanks to Waterman's leadership and positive energy in the face of a strong headwind and roadkill on the course, and McKinley's smile and words of encouragement on the last stretch, and Capasso's ability to push the pace of the team without technically being "on," the Harvard B's finally sprinted across the finish line with a time good enough for second place.

1030: Kiely chills in the SUV that is parked in the "spot that we always park in," (according to Capt. Kerdok) half sleeping and mindlessly consuming a quarter of a large bag of m&m's.

1100ish: team decides to get ready for start at 1215 hours. Line for the one-single porta-john is 20 minutes long. foHUCA Brito (Ilana) gives valuable pep talk while Kiely orchestrates rotation of the line so that it is positioned in the sun instead of stupidly in the much colder shaded area.

1210: Harvard women depart trainers and head for start line only to find that despite the prevalence of all-terrain vehicles and men in fatigues, military precision apparently does not apply to the start times of the road race. The D and C men had yet to take off.

1220: Waterman sprints back to the vans to smartly put on another layer under her Harvard jersey. Kiely talks to a Yale rider who knows her friend from home-the one with the "really really curly blond hair." Ed gives us all encouraging advice like "go fast up that hill." One can only guess that Capasso is having flashbacks to the night before on the hotel balcony overlooking picturesque "Econo Lodge parking lot in middle-of-nowhere New York" singing lyrics from Evita as she gets psyched up for the course.

Sometime after 1230 hours when we all are slightly frozen the road race begins. We think we might possibly die as we fly down the gargantuan hill.
We think we might have flat tires as we wobble around uncontrollably until we realize that it is only the wind. We decide that we really are actually going to die as we make a hairpin turn and begin a ridiculously long uphill climb that is as bad as it looked from the car when we drove the course earlier. Kiely and Waterman manage to stick with the lead pack of riders, which was led by Amy Todd from Cornell and a strong Dartmouth rider whose name I do not remember. The incline gave us plenty of difficulty, slowing the pace enough to enjoy the roaring brook that ran to the left of the course. When I would find myself convinced that I could not go on, I would simply look ahead to the pace car and console myself with the fact that it was moving so slowly that once my legs refused to rotate I could always swallow my pride and get off my bike and start jogging next to the group. By the time we summited the last peak (yes, the imagery is supposed to get you to think Everest, Kilamanjaro, or even just
Washington) we had nine folks remaining. Being well-trained HUCA-ites, we promptly organized a pace line, dropped two people, and had a solid group of seven for the remainder of the lap. (Cornell, Dartmouth, Princeton, Penn State, UNH, and two of us from Harvard.) Definitely a highlight of the day, we all worked together remarkably well and were able to enjoy the ride around the backside of the shimmering lake in the brilliant sunshine.
Life was almost bucolic, until a harrowing ride down the dangerous hill jolted the field back to reality. With Waterman's appropriate cries of "safety first" in our ears, we gripped our brakes for dear life. Suddenly the red SUV in front of us (potentially the pace car) stops short, a girl departs the vehicle from the passenger seat as the field descends upon the stopped car, everyone screaming and trying not to brake too suddenly for fear of catastrophe. The girl casually turns to walk away from the car, then reaches back inside to get her backpack! At this point bikes are veering left and right to avoid collision with the car or with braking competitiors. The lead rider flew ride up past the car, and then the driver of the SUV finally responded to the absurd chaos he had created and hit the gas, accelerating essentially with the entire field right alongside him. Making sure all seven riders were still intact and alive, we turned the corner, and realized that as bad as the uphill was the first time, it was even harder the second time especially after the intensely cramped and tense downhill. Kiely, realizing that she was simply not going to stick with the group, took one more intense push to try to catch the escaping wheel in front of her and brilliantly lost her chain. While it was back on quickly, she started again and immediately threw up that excellent pre-race meal of M&M's. Lots and lots of m&m's-Ed claims that it was because they were the colorless kind. Regretting that particular nutrition decision, Kiely resigned herself to the fate of a dropped rider, and rode the remainder of the course alone while Waterman continued onward with the leaders. Her second lap was consequently a bit slower, a bit more introspective, and occasionally frustrating as she tried to figure out where motivation came from to ride hard when there are absolutely no competitors around you. She amused herself by planning fantasy picnics on the side of the course in the sunshine with the stale cashews, soggy animals crackers, and cliff bars (the contents of my pockets) and super-sweet gatorade and water (the contents of my waterbottles). I (ooh, sorry, I guess I'm switching to first person narration b/c it is easier than third person) also played a game where I would pedal really hard on the uphills to catch a struggling men's UVM rider in front of me in hopes of having someone to talk to, only to then lose him miserably going downhill because somewhere in my limited race knowledge I remembered someone saying you couldn't draft off entrants in other fields… the uphill that he finally let me get near him however I found out that he had been without water since the first few miles having lost his water bottle, so I gave him mine… guess it was his loss he didn't wait for me earlier. J

McKinley, Capasso, and Kiely strongly finished out their journeys for Harvard, ending up in 22nd, 21st , and 7th places respectively. Waterman lost the lead pack only at the end, and came in a minute and a half later in 5th. Awesome job!

1430:Waterman and Kiely go on a cool down ride. For some reason Kiely thinks that she can just ride around this lake and miraculously end up back at the parking lot. Unfortunately that is not the case, and while Super-Triathlete-Waterman was fine with the 6 mile cool down that involved a few more "fun little hills", I-Couldn't-Do-an-Ironman-If-My-Life-Depended-On-It-Kiely was not quite in the same shape, and not pleased when 7/8 of the way around the lake it became apparent that the only logical way back to the parking lot was retracing their route. uphill.

1500-1700: Cheering on the next platoon of riders consisted on intense bursts of HUCA pride followed by long stretches of laying in the grass getting back massages. Good times.

1825: Phenomenal pasta dinner enjoyed on floor of hotel room watching bad television. More good times.

DAY 2
0645: the girls room woke up energized and enthusiastic to race. In fact, the first words out of A-teamer Jenna "I left my pedals in the hotel"
Shoemaker were "I SO do not want to get on my bike today." This sentiment was most loudly echoed by Pam"I threw up m&ms yesterday" Kiely, who for some reason felt like a cement mixer had run over her legs the day before.

0900: (mmm, in case you couldn't tell before, I'm really making up times now. So much for military precision, but this sounds about right) Kiely is alone on her trainer, unable to even complete a full 30 second interval to warm up for the crit. Contemplating feigning some type of injury, Kiely consults her support crew (Jaws) for advice on getting out of having to race. (tendonitis I hear is a good one)

1000: Criterium starts. Very nice course, one nice short hill, and apparently the rest of the women's B field is feeling about as terrible as Harvard's lone B rider. However, Kiely gets her second wind after realizing 1) that no one is trying to go fast and 2) the view of the Hudson River from this backstretch is SWEET. She ends up having a blast thanks to the very loud contingent of Harvard men and A women yelling for her every lap. For some reason at the end a very nice girl from UNH decided to give her a perfect leadout, and she crossed the finish line before someone else crossed it for the first time ever.

After a fun jaunt around the West Point campus where Kiely (joining the A-team warm-up ride as part of her cooldown) almost took out A-team superstar Kerdok when she forgot to turn right, the lone B rider decided to retire her spikes (oops, wrong sport I mean shoes/booties/cleats) and eat lots and lots of pasta. (McKinley, while not racing Sunday, rejoined the group in time to bring an incredible Easter lunch from her mother.) Waterman and Capasso were truly missed.

All in all this was quite a challenging weekend yet an awesome adventure for the Harvard B women. Both days we were blessed with beautiful courses, excellent weather (well, Saturday) and incredible teammates cheering and supporting before/during/and after our races. It was also great to have Coach Sassler along for the ride. Thanks everyone! And of course a special shout out to Johan and his crazy guitar skills… looking forward to some tunes this weekend in the VT hills.

Mens C

Ready, set, go.... TTT: With only three C riders, we decided to steal Jaws (Nathan B.) from the D's to help us (Ramses, Alex, & I) out. As it turns out, it was a wise choice since Jaws can cruise. From the beginning I was having a tough time breathing with all the cross wind hitting us, and it only took a good ten minutes before we were on the steepest climb which shelled me. I told the guys to go on without me seeing that it was a ways before the turn-around at the top. They turned, I turned & started to chase on the downhill. I got as close as 5 seconds off the back, and thought for a moment to yell out for them to pick me up again. The moment left me, and I decided to let them go. So off they went & I started ITT'ing. Soon they were 30 seconds ahead, later a minute. I was passed only by the Penn State guys, and hoped that our team could finish the ride well. As it turns out, they were only a matter of less than 20 seconds out of the points, so forever we will ponder if we should have re-grouped on the downhill....

RR: After the usual waiting of 30 minutes for the start of the road race we finally rolled out onto the beautiful course in the state park. I think that all the road races should be in state parks. The C guys in our field are not the brightest, and so "neutral rollout" has absolutely no meaning as everyone was shifting positions on the downhill. One guy from another team had a mechanical on the rollout even! This is the typical C group. U turn at the bottom happened without any problems, and so we started the long climb. Up front a UVM guy was working hard. He and the other anorexics in the front of the pack were having a tough time with the hill because it was into the wind. I and the other not so hill-climber types were doing what we could to stay in the pack. About halfway or so up the climb, I was in the back of the pack with the heart working hard, and I saw Sir Alex started to wobble a bit. Next thing he was bumping left and down he went. Luckily it was a low speed crash, but the riders behind started to pile up. Being in the back, I was able to react to the accident and skirt around slowed and piled up riders and moved up a good 15 positions. Unfortunately Ramses was caught in the pile up, and after firing up the engine the pack was well ahead and the wind was mean. I made it up to the top with the pack and was trying my best to recover on the back side which proved windy also. I thought I was lucky and started to think about how great it was to be in the pack with all the wind. Then after about 3/4 of the first lap we went around a rotary and hung a right turn to a slight grade. The featherweights decided to pick up the pace, and when I stood up to go, the rest of the engine had nothing to give. So I sat and sadly watched the pack gap me on the grade. I tried to recover and the gap grew to 30 seconds and I wasn't getting any faster. Finally I recovered a bit and started to push it over the top and crank it hard down the steep hill--it was my only chance to catch up. I hit 47mph and still had no sight of the peleton. Then I crossed the bridge before the U turn and looked to the right to see the pack start the climb. It was too late. With the wind and the climb, I started what would be a long two laps of ITT. I was not mercifully pulled after lap number two and on the third lap, somehow an Army guy caught up to me and on lap #3 he was smiling saying how he was glad he had a granny gear spinning away as I was without my hill-climbing 27 standing up and pushing. He was alright until he found out I was a grad student and said, "Man, you must be old." I told he I was ten year older than his sophomore butt and decided that I'm going to have to drop this dude. Towards the top, I pushed and gapped him and never let him catch up. No respect. After the race I had the feeling I've only had after running marathons of not being able to eat anything and just feeling really drained.

Crit: After the road race I had no idea how I was going to race the crit. I only had the experience of racing the course last year and remembered getting dropped after twenty minutes and the pain of pushing through the windy part along the water. So, my strategy was to make sure that I was always on some wheel going into the back stretch. The strategy worked like a charm. I was in the back of the pack riding on the hoods and breathing through my nose. I just made sure that I was on the outside of the turns and moved passed any chumps that looked like they were falling off. After the prime laps I would move up and see if some folks would hammer after it, but no one did. I don't know how many laps we did, but every lap I got to hear a bunch of "alright", "good job"s, and Ed yelling, "Jamie! Move up!" He was right, and I had the same idea as everyone else of trying to position on the last lap on the last fourth of the windy stretch for the sprint. Before starting that windy stretch for the last time I moved up into the middle of the pack to find myself next to Alex watching Ramses head out of the corner in position number five or so. Then I had the surreal experience of Alex turning to me and asking me, "Do you know how many laps we have left?" I tried to be calm, and said in a firm voice, "Dude, it's the bell lap!" A: "This is the last one?" J: "This is it!" and then I tried to sit on the outside of the pack behind someone, but with the alley on the right side to make a final move. Like a rookie, I failed to drift over enough with pointed elbow out to protect the right side, and two Columbia guys attacked at the place where I wanted to with a trail of punks on their wheels. I snuck in behind them and we turned the last corner. Starting my sprint I realized that quarters were tight and there was no way I was going to get all the way up to the front with all the traffic in front of me. I passed probably ten or twelve people to get the spot right below the points (13th) without ever reaching full speed and not exerting myself in the whole race. Ramses came in 16th and Alex was 19th. It was a very unsatisfying feeling to realize that there were no sprinters in the field and I should have won the race by positioning better or taking a risk and getting up to the front. Anyhow, it's a learning experience, which leaves a lot of "what if's" in my mind.

peace & love jamie

***
Just to add to that race report, that was not the only totally retarded thing I did. I won a sprint for the lap before the first prime (not
bright) and ended up in a bar mashing duel with some lunatic from Penn State who proceeded to get nudged to the kerb. I did shut down a break in the crit which was satisfying though - especially when the Cornell guy said "Harvard you Douchebag!".
I'll try to use a few more braincells this week.

Alex

Mens D

Army weekend was kick-a$$! Besides being gorgeous, it was a balmy 60 F on Saturday, which made for great road-racing weather. Fortunately, we managed to get lost only once on the way to each race. So we had plenty of time to warm up AND wait in the 30 person porta-John line. (The USMA likes to test the competitors - they bring only one can to each race, and then threaten to DQ your entire team if you do your business "animal style" in the woods). Arriving warm from our time-trials, Johan "The Man of Steel" Tabora, Clifford "Not the Big Red Dog"* Chen, Conor "Jewish Heat"* Evans, Zachary "Seat-Post" Hoover, and I lined up right at the start line. (* = nicknames under development). We began with a relaxing, neutral, 50-mph, speed-wobbly start down a 500 foot descent to a 180 turn to go RIGHT BACK UP. Fortunately, the D field was feeling sleepy, so we spun easily up the next 2.5 miles / 600 ft. (except for fluffy-haired UNH guy, who decided drafting was for chumps, and sat 50 ft. in front of us the whole climb - only to be reeled in like a mercury-poisoned fish at the top). Coming off the rollers into the Lake Tiorati rotary, we all followed the pace car through -- until someone started yelling "wrong way! wrong way!" at us -- then we discovered that we had been following some OTHER green SUV that just HAPPENED to look like the pace car and just HAPPENED to be between the pack and the pace car (great work corner marshals; you deserve a gold star for your keen alertness and traffic-directing skills). So we all chased back on to what was now the front of the pack (for some reason they didn't use the opportunity to make a crazy break). Seat-post and I positioned ourselves right up at the front, taking the shortest pulls possible as the pack gained speed through the rest of the lap. Meanwhile, Cliff and the Man of Steel had fallen off the peloton and chased solo. Cliff almost hit a deer (!!!) on his way around scenic Heriman Park. Back down the hill things started heating up at the front. The UVM pair made a break attempt, but we caught them quickly. Post and I responded with our own break, but UVM and Coast Guard brought the pack back on us. We sped through the hairpin and started back up the hill. Nobody was saving anything anymore - everyone was all-out on the hill. A UVM rider got a 200m lead on the pack up the hill, while I got dropped about 50ft. back. Post kept it chill hanging with the lead riders, and helped to catch a brief UNH/Williams break. I chased back on on the rollers, and the pack sped up to catch UVM. Going fast now around the lakes, we caught a winded UVM about half-way through the lap. Coming in to the last miles we began jockeying for position, and a pack surge on the second-to-last ascent left Post chasing off the back along with a Columbia rider. The finish sprint was a series of false-jumps, but in the end it was Army beating me out by a few inches, leaving me in 2nd place. Post was close behind at 13th, Cliff got 38th, Superman had 44th, and Conor got 46th out of 54 starters. Sunday's criterium was scheduled to have rain and parajumpers, neither of which ever materialized. Instead, there were a lot of crashes. Zach had gone back to Beantown for Easter, Evans had gone to his folks for Passover, and I was celebrating "Nathan-has-a-pulled-tendon-from-the-road-race" day. So the starters Sunday were down to Cliff and Superman. Our D men looked good, making it through the first crash (Penn State and UNH on the hairpin) and through the first four laps, when the pack splintered, leaving our beloved HUCA-ites chasing. Some UVM dude ran over a wood screw, blew out his front tire, fell on a pile of rocks, ran to the wheel pit, got a free lap, and won the race. Superman paced along with John Palombini of UVM through to the end, finishing 30th, while Cliff came in 33rd. Stay tuned for the time-trial report. Great weekend!!!! Everyone should do this race weekend next year. It's AWESOME. See you Tuesday! -El tiburon

Qué onda, Huca.

The TTT at Army was a pretty sweet course; well, if you like climbing and descending and riding your bike on the highway, which I do (except for when you have to climb fast). Anyway, with Stewart out at a job interview and El Tiburón filling in with the C Men, the D was left to the motley crew of myself, Conor, the Man of Steel, and Cliff. Despite having never practiced together, we managed a good start and good communication throughout the race. After heading out to the right and up the second big hill, Conor (who performed admirably in both races despite being off of his bike a lot, and I mean A LOT in the past month) sent the three of us on to finish without him. The Man of Steel, Cliff, and I traded pulls and kept it tight with minimal gapping for most of the race. We kept a steady pace on the climbs, sticking together so as not to have to regroup too much at the top of the hills, and we took turns blasting down the hills as fast as possible. We got passed by Penn St., which sucked, but we couldn't really turn up the heat much more. We at least managed to keep them close at hand. We pulled in with a 3rd place time. I was really psyched to have ridden so well and communicated so well despite our lack of preparation. Next time we'll definitely kick it up a notch.

Hasta pronto,

Il Postino