Boys in Black ride to Gold

"There's a lot of black out there!" - A racer commenting on the presence of the Cambridge Team at the New England Velodrome

It was a good day for the Cambridge Bicycle Track Team, who took home multiple medals in the events at the New Hampshire Amateur State Games this past Tuesday. The team took home gold medals in both the A and C Olympic sprints. Jeremy Dunn was the lone Cambridge rider racing A's, but that didn't stop him from anchoring the cat A olympic sprint to gold. In the cat C olympic sprint, Aaron, Jordan, and Erik rode to gold despite Erik having a pedal strike coming out of turn three in the first lap.

The match sprint put two Cambridge men on the podium, with Aaron taking silver and Jordan taking gold. Erik fought his way to silver in the points race despite serious pressure from other competitors and some uneasy riders in the pack. I, n the second C points race Zach threw down and took home another silver medal for the boys in black. Lastly Jordan posted the second fasted cat C time for the Kilometer, rounding out the medal count.

It was a solid performance that brought well deserved attention to the individual and team talents that have developed on the Cambridge team, and another great night of racing at the New England Velodrome.

trip to Lehigh Valley Velodrome?

Craig had mentioned maybe getting a trip together for the team at our meeting, so I took it upon myself to check out the schedule and see if there were any good weekends coming up and the weekend of August 11th/12th looks like it may have some potential. We could do the rookie races on Saturday, then watch the Atlantic Regional Masters Track TT Championship on Sunday.

I guess the first step would be to see if there are enough of us interested that it would make this worth while, then we could hop on ride arraignments, etc.

Here's a link to the Lehigh Valley Velodrome, look at the schedule and feel free to propose any other dates that look like they could worth the trip down.

Rideshare - check GoLoco

Team - I signed up for GoLoco and posted a ride leaving Cambridge Bicycle to New England Velodrome for tomorrow's (wednesday) race. You may have to search by address, in which case it is 259 Mass Ave, 02139 to 23 Grenier Field Rd Londonderry NH

cheers!

Tuesday warm-up ride

I did this last week in preparation for racing on Wednesday: haul up Mass Ave to Lexington Center and back. Its nothing long and I see its purpose as making sure my legs are warmed up for the next day; from Cambridge Bike its just a hair shy of 10 miles each way with a nice park in Lexington to catch your breath at. If enough people are interested, we could make this a weekly thing, maybe tack some extra miles onto it/change the route weekly.

I'll be out of town tomorrow morning and a good chunk of the afternoon, but should be back in time to do this. Meet at 7pm at CB. If I'm not there, head out without me.

training training.

Hey Team.
Despite my defense of the points race this week, (thanks again Nick). I also lost a match sprint to nervous guy on tuesday night.

So I want to do some interval training to speed up my sprint next week, doing it with a group makes everyone feel more accountable and more likely to do the work and also keep me honest about the effort.

There's a workout i do with my rowers that i think adapts well to the track and has the same basic training goal.

3 or 4 sets of 250m sprints.
I propose finding a quiet street near the shop (sydney st area?) and marking off the distance. if a few people are interested we can run it like alley sprints. after you finish each one, ride around the block and get in line for another until you finish each set. take a break, start the next set. lather rinse repeat. proceed to nearest bar with tdf coverage when finished.

Monday night, 8pm?

-Seth

Race as a team...

Seth, being the defending NH Amateur State Games Champion of the Cat B points race, asked that I block to help him defend his title. I’m pretty competitive, so I told him that I had plans of taking his title away, despite the fact that he's a teammate.

On the first points lap he took first place, gaining 5 points. I was day-dreaming at the moment of the sprint and fell back in the group, so I didn’t get a single point. I was going to have to make up some ground on him if I was planning on any kind of victory. I made my way back towards the front as the field recovered from the sprint. In general, Seth and I tend to stay close to the front in any race. I think it stems from the fact that we’re both all around riders, not particularly strong at sprinting. So we proceeded as we usually do, keeping the pace up for the group.

As the second sprint began I realized I had managed to be boxed into the sprinters lane when an early attack came from behind. Seth was ready however, and picked up a couple more points, and I still had zero. At this point I realized I had one mission: make sure Seth wins.

After the sprint Seth moved to the front again to keep up the pressure until the final sprint. Realizing that he needed to save every drop of energy he had left, I made my way up to him and yelled for him to get out of the sprinters lane and grab my wheel. The next two laps consisted of me emptying my tank at the front of the pack. Seth sat behind me watching for an attack. The B group has some serious sprinters. I wanted to wear them out, so I kept the pace up as high as I possibly could. I didn’t look back to check if a gap was opening. I didn’t care, because I was going to give it everything to put him into position for the final sprint.

With one and a half laps to go, two IBC members came over the top. Seth reacted and took third on their wheel, and I grabbed Seth’s wheel. As we came around corner four for the bell lap, I let a gap open that I knew was going to be painful to close. To further seal the deal, I remained in the sprinters lane and let the entire pack of potential spoilers take the long way around.

For the second year in a row, Seth Davis took gold in the Cat B points race. Congratulations, Seth!

Team Members added!

Welcome to all our new Team Members! Many have been racing with us since the first weeks of practice, and many more are committed to the long schedule ahead. We are most excited about the new friends we are going to make and the fun summer of racing that lies waiting. Keep your eyes here for team roster updates, race recaps, and photo galleries of all the racing action. And don't sleep on the next week of racing in the Omnium Series.

allez allez!

This blog is contributed to by the entire Cambridge Bicycle Track Team. It is meant to be a collection of the teams happenings during the '07 season at the New England Velodrome.