Race Report: 4/27/14 NYC Spring Series Road Race, 2nd place by Evan Fineman
About 100 of my closest race results opponents and I lined up for a chilly start in the Cat 3/4 race; the last of the NYC Spring series. Mike Prokopec and Chris Chapman teamed up for the fun.
The race went along pretty easy for the first couple of laps. The course had a few tricky spots to navigate for a field our size. The top of the hill squeezes down to one lane and then near the end the road shifts twice and then goes two lanes wide up to the finish.
Every lap had a few people in the runners lanes (guys got thrown out) and hitting cones...I got hit with a cone on the 4th or 5th lap and rode over it but a few guys behind me went down. I stopped to make sure that everyone got up and then had to power up the hill to catch back on to the field. I used the next few laps to make my way back up to the front.
The pace was very sporadic and varied from fast to a snails pace. The latter made the climbs a bit sketchy.
As we came into the 10th lap with 1 more to go, I moved up to about 20th position and began my data gathering. It got loud in the group and I had no idea what everyone was yelling about.
I didn't feel great until the pace heated up with two to go. I was very worried that the whole field would want to sprint but that turned out not to be the case. The pace slowed as teams started moving their sprinters up and into position for a lead out (yes everyone seems to have one). I held steady here and made sure I didn't lose one place and just kept pushing forward.
As we came into the homestretch the field was powering along on the right side to stay away from the wind. Mike made his move up the left side where the road was open. I followed his lead and went strong. All the traffic stayed right and the winner jumped out of that group before I even started my sprint. I came up the left solo and threw my bike over the line to take 2nd! On to the Bear Mountain Spring Classic on the 11th of May.
