Set you Calendar alerts; Red Hook Round 2 is on its way

Last weekend myself and what seemed like the majority of the east coast took to the road to make their way up to Cambridge for Tour of The Battenkill 2013, America’s Queen of the Classics. Amongst it’s official titles it’s also been cited as the East Coast’s answer to Paris Roubaix and the toughest single day stage race.

Perhaps through naivety or just caught up in the pleasure of leaving New York behind for a weekend of racing with my friends and covering more than 7 laps of the local park I was relatively calm in the build up the race, putting the ‘big tyre choice’ discussion behind me. It felt like the entire towns and surrounding areas had turned out for the race with a really good atmosphere, despite the low temps and serious rainfall in the week before the race. For many this race was the ‘real’ start to the season and it was certainly a highlight in everyone’s calendar.

Despite the recent un-sanctioning of the event and loss of the pro race, the event swelled to 3,000 racers this year not including Sundays Gran Fondo. With this many riders our Cat 5 field was split up into groups of 50 riders lettered A- N. Ride Brooklyn sat in group A with familiar faces from Kissena and Waffles racing teams.

The pace started  sedately which with the familiar faces around me made it feel like a group ride rather than a race, further lulling me into a false sense of security. There were some early attempts before Juniper road from Siggis and Waffles joined by myself to stretch the pack out a little, however a serious attempt at a break this early would have been ill informed. The dirt climbs did most of the work for us in trimming the pack down and at the top of Joe Bean / Bunker hill at mile 26/27 we were down to around 15. I slipped off the back at this point and spent the next 20 miles in no-mans land fighting wind and motivation myself.

Unaware of how strung out the pack was I was disheartened to hear a group coming behind me, so disorientated I assumed it was the 5B lead team bridging. I was happy to see it was actually the chase group from 5A. It was great to be enveloped by these guys and there was a real spirit of co-operation and shared pain as we marched toward the finish at mile 64.

To evaluate the race it was an incredible experience and learning process, team tactics are rarely deployed in Cat5 park races so seeing the dynamic develop between teams and the entire pack over a race that requires cooperation was very interesting. Racing on the 10 dirt sections was a great shake up and incredible to watch your power just get sucked away by the terrain. It was great to finish and hear that Chris Pino had made podium and got his chocolate Milk… after all that’s what we were there for?!

Check out some photography of the event here or check out #battenkill.