NYC Spring Series
Prospect Park
March 26, 2005
By Joaquin C de Baca
The 3/26 PP race is a bit fuzzy in my memory, so I don't remember all of our Kissena contingent, but I remember that Ian, Peter, Keith, Eric (road captaining), Brandon, Victor, and David were all riding. About 3 laps in a 4 man break developed on the hill. Champion Systems had a man in the break so another of their riders came to the front and covered the chase attempts, constantly taking second wheel and disrupting the chase rotation. He was having good success, but after nearly three laps Keith started up an alliance with Metro and they also started sending guys up to chase. With 4 to go Eric let me know that he was setting things up for a bridge attempt the next time on the hill, and sure enough several Kissena riders took pulls to keep things fast right up through the first third of the hill. Victor gave me a good lead at the bottom and then I managed to bridge up to the break, taking two or three guys with me from the pack. I have no real idea what our initial gap was (or even if it was a real gap), but after two laps we seemed to have about 40 seconds on the pack. The last lap started to get slow as guys were vying to stay out of the wind before for the sprint. Down by the first traffic light I saw somebody jump on the right side and went to make a jump myself, when the rider behind me touched elbows with me on the left side and sent us both wobbling. I got my balance back and went to line with 5th place. Not quite the place I was hoping for but still, it was a fun race, tactically and otherwise.
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