NJ State RR Championships

[equus123]

Hey all,

I wanted to post a very proud victory I had this past weekend at the NJ State RR. I'm a cat 4 and this is my second year racing AND riding. I will have owned a road bike for 2 years in the end of July I've had an incredible season thus far with a 3rd, 2nd, 1st (in that order) and this weekend, another 1st to add to the resume.

The women's cat 4 race (38 mi) started at noon when the temp was a comfortable 90+ degrees. NOT! There were only 11 of us in the field which made the long roads with strong winds a lot of fun. The first lap wasn't too bad to handle. There were attacks going on continuously when the only hilly section of the course came up but these attacks were only half-hearted so I didn't waste my energy marking them and let the field pick up the pace as I went along for the ride. We did 2x19 mi loops. At the same spot on the second and final lap, a decisive attack went and there were 6 of us that would be the eventual breakaway with 10 miles to go. We were hauling butt to keep it away and we were the also the *top* 6 in the race so we tested each other's fitness. With about 2 miles to go, one person got dropped and two went off the front at about 5 seconds. As we approached the finish, there was a hill long enough to not be a sprinter's hill (short and steep) where it leveled out at the top with ~50 meters to the line. The straightaway leading to this hill was a continuous mental battle of "stay or go?". I put all of my eggs into the basket that the two off the front weren't going to maintain the distance. I also hoped that the strong TT'ers wheel I was on would reel us up to the two but she didn't. At the base of the hill I made my move, saw I was closing in on the two and went one more gear harder and dug deep. As I approached the finish line, I looked around and saw nobody near me. I ended up winning by about 3 bike lengths. I was so happy because this race was one of my goals, I wanted the upgrade points, and most importantly - knew I had a very well deserved win. I was very very happy with the way I raced this weekend and felt I learned a lot of judgement. Yay

[NJBikeGal]

Congrats to you, again...I was the rider who took 2nd on the day! My personal best finish in a race so far (this is my first season racing, so I guess it was a good day for newer riders!).

It was a New Jersey scorcher for sure, but it was great to be on such a beautiful course for 2 hours of racing! A big congrats to our Cat 4 group, which seemed to be one of the only packs that did not experience a crash on the day! Nice job, chicas!

[equus123]

Wow, very good for your first year racing. You had a great race, you certainly put a lot of time pulling at the front! And I know that I used your wheel several times So thank you for that!

Yes, no crashes and I also noticed nobody had terrible bike handling skills. There's usually a few in every race but not this one. It was a pleasant surprise

[maillotpois]

Congrats, you two. Great results!!!

[NJBikeGal]

I got stuck up in front a few times for longer than I would have liked. Fortunately, I had good legs for the day!

Do you know anyone who was taking photos of the race? I'd love to see if someone got a shot of us at the finish!

[equus123]

I know, I've been looking around online all day, myself. There's nothing yet for our race. A great site that I go to a lot is nyvelocity.com. They have a couple up from Sat but no women. Everyone prob left by then One of the other local teams (Metra Industries/Ideal Tile...the men's elite team) has one of the youger rider's fathers who is a photographer and gets a lot of great shots. They go to most of the standard NJ races and uploads his photos up on that website.

....even still waiting for the official results to be posted to see how my other teammates made out