Results from Boston this weekend:

     Team Time Trial
      Men's C (17 starters)
           14th Drexel


      Men's D (15 teams)
          12th Drexel


     Road Race
     Men's B (78 starters)
           25th Justin Kline
          26th Joe Kopena
          35th Erik da Silva


      Men's C (68 starters)
          26th Chris Hair


      Men's D (99 starters)
           61st Doug Markgraf (two crashes)
           79th Mike Ondik
           87th Steve Bronstein (flat)
           90th Dan Moyer
           dnf Steve Place (flat)


     Crit
      Men's B (59 starters)
           11th Erik da Silva
           dnf Joe Kopena (wussy and angry)


      Men's C (50 starters)
           25th Chris Hair


      Men's D (43 starters)
           26th Doug Markgraf
          29th Steven Place
           32nd Dan Moyer
           34th Steve Bronstein
           36th Mike Ondik


     Of note, our Men's B team again failed spectacularly to get to the line on time. There were also whole slew of crashes, flats, and mechanical failures throughout the weekend. However, the weather was really nice, but that did mean several of us got pretty sunburnt.

     Feeling that I needed all my gears and shifting in general for this weekend, I of course I did the smart thing: I borrowed Steve's bike. Let me tell you, the first lap was real interesting as I adjusted to the handling and fit (I don't reccommend this kind of action). Long story short, the road race was solid though I only finished in the group. Despite probably being the closest fit on the team other than Erik's, and me loving the fit of Steve's mountain bikes, the Douglas was way too big. The Saturday course made it sort of ok---I could stand on the hills and cruise easily in the pack on the other parts.

     Unfortunately, early on I was in a small crash. After that, my brakes kept rubbing and it was killing me on hills. One of the PSU guys and I kept dialing out the brakes but it didn't help much. After almost two laps of that, Erik saw what was going on and started yelling at me that my wheel was out of the dropouts. It had probably been loose to start with (I'd thrown my wheel and its funky Rolf skewers onto Steve's bike), and the early incident probably didn't help. After I fixed that I was a good half mile back. But, that same PSU friend had also had trouble and I caught him quickly. The two of us put in a pretty big effort and 3/4 of the way into the last lap caught the group. Let me tell you, it felt great to finally come back up to Erik and Justin. At the start of the chase I'd been pretty sure I wasn't going to make it to the group before the finish.

     Ben from PSU's a beast, and took the finishing sprint climb for 5th or 6th despite the extra chase. I had the endurance to set myself up well, but on the uphill finish I had zero strength and got swarmed. I was sort of pleased at tacking back on and placing ok after all the troubles, but was pissed that Justin caught me right before the line.

     The crit on Sunday was a wash on my end. If you have a chance to do the Tufts crit (they have Fed races), do it. It's very technical and a lot of fun. I was doing well, but the bike was just too big. As some measure of that, throughout the rotation my knee never went past my heel, even with the seat all the way forward and lower than I'd like. I just couldn't get any leverage over the pedals, and without being able to accelerate quickly I was getting killed in every corner. Eventually I wussed out and rode off to sulk in the cars. Hopefully this week I'll be equipped with a new ride and it'll go better.

     Justin put in a great weekend, upgrading to B, though he skipped the crit to save his knees. Definitely he fits right in there in those races. Erik again spent all sorts of time ahead in the road race, for no apparent reason. I greatly enjoyed sitting in the back listening to people try and figure out who that was up the road---"Who is that up there? Yale? Bucknell? No, I think it's a Drexel guy. Drexel?" He did howevery redeem himself by doing pretty well in Sunday's crit. I'm hoping Justin, Erik, and I can actually get our act together and do some interesting. I even promise to talk to them a bit (they seem convinced that I'll only talk to the UPenn and PSU guys in a race).

     Our boy Chris earned us our first infraction of the year, when he utterly failed to realize no one else was sprinting, thought the race was ending, and took off across the yellow line in a mad dash... a lap too early. The officials, however, took pity on him, probably largely because they figured he must already feel like a jackass.

     Our D guys were plagued with trouble on Saturday---crashes, flats, you name it. However, everybody looked pretty strong in the crit on Sunday, surprisingly so given how technical it is. Steve and Doug in particular could do really well in some of the coming crits if they can just punch it up a bit in the opening phase of the race and make the selection into the lead group.

     So, it was a decent weekend. Nothing god awful, nothing really spectacular, except all the sunshine (it was so nice). Hopefully Army will be a little more exciting (in a good way).

     Two other notes:

      - The fields were ridiculously big. Check out those start sizes.

      - Regi came and hung out with us on Sunday. He seems to be doing well and is even talking about maybe trying some racing in the summer. We'll see. I hear this sort of talk from alumni all the time (coughs, looks at Lou).