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Friday, July 2, is the first day of the Fitchburg-Longsjo stage race in Fitchburg, Massachusetts. The six of us will be racing the W4 field, and we're really looking forward to spending four days just racing and hanging out. (We're not so much looking forward to climbing Wachusett Mountain on July 4th, but that too shall pass.)

Race reports should be up daily, internet willing, but you can also check actual results at www.longsjo.com.

Wish us luck!

Andrea, Courtney, Emma, Eve, Liz and Nancy

Prospect Park, June 12

Andrea writes:

"We raced with the masters and it was FAST from the start. It was a big field and there were some sketchy guys. A crash happened not too far in front of me—someone's tire blew up. It sounded like a gunshot. It was a very frightening moment, but I managed to stay upright. After each hill the pace accelerated and I had to work very hard to stay on. I found myself slipping towards the back. In the sixth lap there was another crash to the right of me. In the moment of chaos, the field moved to avoid the crash and I was forced to the left. Everyone to my left was forced into the jogger lane. Once again I managed to stay upright, but the field was accelerating ahead and I had to work hard again to stay on. In the 8th lap after the hill I saw the wheels slipping away and knew I had to work harder. I couldn't manage to get on a wheel and found myself in the wind. Oh no! I had nothing left—my legs were burning and I was spent. A few other women also got dropped at the same time and we pacelined to ride the remaining three laps. Even though I got dropped, I finished the race and made a few friends, so not all was lost."

NYC Triathlon

I can't swim worth a damn, so I did the NYC Triathlon as part of a relay team—Hannah Borgeson did the swim and Sam Grotewold did the run. It was a gorgeous, cool morning, and we did pretty well for ourselves, taking second in the co-ed team division by less than a minute. We're planning to work on our transitions for next year so we can properly win this thing!

The bike was 40K from West 76th Street, up to West Gun Hill Road on the West Side Highway, then heading south to West 59th and back to the boat basin and the handoff to Sam. I had a pretty good ride, despite losing my water bottle in the Bronx (yes, I should have had two!) and spending a lot of time yelling 'Left' at people. All the participants were traveling in one land of the road, so I was passing the waves of riders who'd left behind me and being passed by the fastest men of the waves behind me.

My ride took just over 1 hour and 11 minutes, which placed me third out of all the women age groupers, and fourth out of all the relay team cyclists. So I'm pretty pleased with how things turned out and looking forward to Friday's TT at Fitchburg.

CRCA B/C race

Ann-Marie & I were up early for a combined B/C field in Central Park. The fields were combined so that Sanchez-Metro and Radical Media could hold their women's bike racing clinic. It seemed to be very well attended, so we hope to see some of those women in the field soon!

Couldn't really tell you what was going on in our race though, as we were both too focused on staying safe and upright! It was good fun though, and it's always a bit of a rush to tuck into a large field and be sucked along. Unfortunately, on the fourth lap, someone went down over the growing frost heave at West 87th and the ensuing chaos slowed me down enough that I couldn't chase back onto the pack. Bah! A-M had dropped off after an earlier incident, and word was there were one or two more crashes before the actual finish, including one at the base of Cat's Paw.

On the upside, of course, neither of us were involved in the crashes, and we both felt great. But yeah, actually finishing with the field would have been a nice touch!

Housatonic Hills Road Race, Southbury, CT

Presented by Zephyr Cycling Team
Cat 4 Women — 27 miles
Course description: Rollers and substantial climbs with some merciful flats and down hills.

"Is this ever going to end?" is what I kept thinking during the race. Racing a course I'd never seen before was full of surprises—hill, after hill, and ending with a final big hill.

Women's Cat 4 started with the juniors leading the field. I was at the front with them for the first 5 miles or so. I was having fun, but they were a bit reckless. Then, my teammates called me back; the women wanted to separate. The first big climb split the women's 4 field. Andrea, Liz and I were in the front pack for a while, but the pace up the hills was pretty fast. I held on to the front pack (minus Ellen Moses-CRCA/Foundation who escaped in a breakaway that I didn't even notice—Go Ellen!, soon to be Cat 3, we hope).

I led the pack into the hills and drifted 4-6 riders every time. Once I even got to ride almost an entire long climb at MY pace with the field following behind. The pace on the flats and down hills was slow, so when I got tired of setting the pace, I urged the gals to move the pace along so that the riders behind didn't close the gap. They got the message and we picked up the pace. I didn't feel confident enough about attacking and I didn't know anyone that I could enlist to make a big move with me. Maybe next time, I'll find one or two women and try something ballsy. The women I was riding with were very strong on the hills.

My only big mistake was at the finishing climb. I let too many riders get ahead of me going into the climb (at the bottom), thinking I could pace myself toward the finish while others pooped out. Well, that was true for about 4 riders; the other 9 gained just enough distance to beat me to the line. Next time, I will assert myself much more when nearing the finish. I was afraid to burn out before the final sprint. I had an exciting sprint with 2 other girls; one of whom beat me by inches. I got 12th place. 37 women finished the race. I was very close to finishing in the top 10—so cool. This race was wonderful for my confidence.

Senor Swanky's were great out there. Congratulations to Liz, Andrea, Ann-Marie, Eve, and Courtney who crossed the finish line in that order. Ellen Moses (CRCA/Foundation) won the race and we gave an enthusiastic cheer as she was called to the stage to receive her prize money.

—Emma "CANNONdale" Nelson

CRCA 20K ITT

Two laps of the park; nice, clear, humid morning. Everyone set personal bests, and Eve kicked all our butts. She knocked a full five minutes off her previous TT time, rolling in at 32:34.

Ann Marie Miller took the women’s win with 29:13. Our pal Ellen? To mix a few metaphors, knocked the casing off the ball in her first time trial, putting in a pretty respectable effort of 30:23, which tied her for fourth. We’re simply appalled she didn’t do better.

18 Eve Ashcraft 32:34
20 Liz Seward 32:43
21 Nancy Camp 33:02
23 Andrea Urist 33:23
26 Emma Nelson 34:28

Cox Communications Crit, RI

Courtney writes:

"23 laps semi flat, one hill, cobblestone, very windy, medium crowd, pro race.

"I got to the start line really nervous, but really wanted to try to do well. We went off, the race went very fast from the start, but I tried just to sit in. There was a lot of technical turns and as I didn't warm up or have any knowledge of the course, well, I did it all wrong initially and ended up in the back of the pack working like a maniac just to stay in. About 5 laps in, I began to finally relax a bit (and I say that lightly). I will say however, that I really was having FUN! It was really hard, my legs were killing me, my heart felt like it was going to go out of my body, and then, of course there was an attack. I managed to stay in the peleton for another 5 laps and well, that was it for me. I was done. The gal who won was a pro and the runners-up were gals from Argentina who stayed around from Philly.

"All in all, it was a great experience. A very long trip, but worth it. I learned that I really need to mentally be ready every time I hit the line regardless of whether or not I get a warm up, I just have to grit my teeth and dig in and do the best that I can. I did, so I walked away feeling ok. Next year I think I would like to arrive early and get my act together though, maybe even have some team mates, it really is a fun race and the crowd was great!"

High Bridge, NJ

High Bridge was absolutely brutal- a very steep nasty climb in the very beginning. It seperated the field into 2 groups. I got dropped but managed to get back on with the 2nd group and finish the race with them, but it was really hard. Even though I felt like crap, I didn't give up. A few very strong women showed up and rode like maniacs. I'm really glad I did it though. It was very good training. I also had the excellent comraderie of Marie DeRosa and Ann Marie who decided to race too- she also finished the race. We had fun.

-Andrea

ESG Qualifier, Prospect Park

Twelve laps of Prospect Park, winner takes all. Or to be exact, the top three women in this race qualify for the Empire State Games.

At the start of the third lap, the pack brought back the first major break, and a counter initiated by Frances Harrison (Sanchez-Metro) succeeded wildly. It was made up of Frances, Ellen Moses (Foundation), Lori Romano (Axis), Becky Koh (Radical Media) and me. We established a good rotation and until an incident at four laps to go, it was all excellent. Painful and hard, sure, but excellent. Back in the pack, Nancy & Andrea chased down pretty much everything they could to make sure the break wasn’t endangered.

Just after four to go, two pedestrians and a dog tried to cross the road in front of the break, leading to swerving, yelling and my chin hitting the pavement. I’m fine now, but my race was over.

Lori took the win, followed by Frances, Ellen & Becky. Sarah Sauveyre (Sanchez-Metro) won the field sprint and 5th overall. Nan and Andrea experienced the bane of all racers—working hard the entire race only to get boxed in at the end.

There were definitely some disappointments for all of us by the end of the race, but we are also awfully proud of this race. We all gave it our best effort, and played to win, and had fun doing it.

So, to steal a bit from Dan Schmalz, our level of suck (on a scale of 1-10, with 10 being the most), we rate this race a 2.

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