Shipping Up to Boston

This weekend I headed up to Boston with my teammates Kyle and Nick (our other teammate Todd drove up and stayed separately from us) to race in the final, end of season criterium, the TD Bank Mayor's Cup around Government Square in the downtown district.  With the cancellation of the Capital Crit in Washington, DC this upcoming weekend, Mayor's Cup served as a last minute replacement as the finale of the USACrits Series.  However, it was only 60 minutes long - roughly the length of a local amateur crit and no where close to the 50 miles that CapCrit was supposed to be.  Weak!



We left early Saturday morning from Philadelphia so that we could go for a casual ride in the afternoon around Boston and the surrounding areas and have a relaxed, late morning on Sunday before the race. Kyle went to Boston University so he was familiar with the surrounding areas and we were being hosted by two of his friends that lived in Brookline, Dave and Emily.  On the way up we stopped at Nardelli's Grinder Shoppe for lunch, consistently voted Connecticut's best sandwich place (I would agree).  We arrived at Dave and Emily's place around 3PM, quickly dropped off our stuff, changed, and headed out for a ride with Emily and her friend Greg.  The ride was done at a conversational pace and we biked out to near Wellesley College before heading back.  Kyle (unfairly I might add) won all but one of the townline sprints as he knew where they were.  I insisted that it was Opposite Day and that I won fair and square without exerting myself or getting out of the saddle once but he didn't buy it... For dinner we ate a nice restaurant owned by a local cycling enthusiast who leads some cycling events and rides from out of  his establishment.

My last race of the season at the Mayor's Cup Criterium in downtown Boston.

Sunday morning we got up, watched the end of the UCI Road Race World Championship and then got ready for the race.  I exploded another latex inner tube when it poked through a microscopic hole in the sidewall of my race tire so I ended up racing on 'slow' butyl tubes to (hopefully) ensure that I wouldn't have any tire catastrophes mid-race. The race itself went okay.  I arrived somewhat late to the line so was positioned pretty far back in the large 110+ person field but luckily the course was very easy and wide and provided plentiful opportunities to move up. The uphill section preceding the finishing straight and through turn one provided me good opportunities to advance my position but I would often lose some spots on the downhill going through turn two that had a few sunken manhole covers that would cause my rear wheel to skip. Although we averaged 28mph it still wasn't fast enough and the race wasn't long enough to drop a large portion of the field or string things out single file so we were often entering the turns three to four wide. I figured with a large prize purse on the line ($15,000 and $5000 worth of premes), things would start getting a bit sketchy in the closing laps with that many riders jockeying for position in the wide turns.  Sure enough, I heard a crash right behind me with around 8 to go and I pretty much didn't advance much past mid-pack after that as I was thinking about how I made it out relatively unscathed from my crash at Univest (ending a four season crash-free streak) and not wanting to tempt fate again. On the last lap going around a blind turn heading into the final uphill stretch I barely avoided crashing into riders ahead of me who were swerving to avoid some downed riders tangled up near the barriers on the exit of the turn. I rolled across the line in 40th place somewhat disappointed as it wasn't really that hard of a race exertion-wise.  Oh well - perhaps next year...

Kyle, myself and Nick after the race.

Overall Boston was a pretty nice city.  It seemed a bit more 'open' than Philadelphia with more green spaces, wider streets, and larger building setbacks.  However, I also got the impression that the metro area where we rode was a bit bigger than the typical riding areas northwest of Philadelphia.  In Philly you can ride for 30 to 45 minutes or so from downtown and be out in some pretty rural roads.  We rode longer from Brookline and never got away from suburban roadways.  Traffic was pretty light however and the roads were pretty nice if somewhat flat.  Also, while Pennsylvania might have some antiquated liquor laws, Brookline has the most draconian parking laws I've ever seen.  No overnight parking in the entire town?  Absolutely ridiculous.

After packing up and bidding farewell to Dave and Emily, we stopped to eat as Nick insisted that we get a clam roll before we leave Boston.  Good choice - it was quite delicious.  Fried whole belly clams with tartar sauce on sandwich bread with a bountiful serving of both fries and onion rings on the side.  I ended up getting back to my place and going to bed around 3AM.  A long, but enjoyable weekend and a nice way to end the season, even if my poor result would suggest otherwise.  I wasn't able to repeat my BAR series win this year and didn't walk away with a single victory, but I did clinch the PA State Time Trial championship (I was beaten by two out of state riders - an Australian guy and Tim Mitchell, the current world masters 30+ champion in both the TT and road race).  Hopefully I will not slack off during the off season training like I did this year and I have some different yet lofty goals for next year that might be 'easier' to attain rather than focusing on crits like I have for the past couple years.

Thanks again to Emily and Dave for letting us stay at their place and also to my relatives for coming out and cheering me on.  Until next year Boston!


Coming up next week I'll be section hiking a part of the Appalachian trail with my dad and brother and over Columbus Day weekend my friends and I will be making our annual bike trip up to NYC and the surrounding areas.  Stay tuned!