This past weekend, a group of us drove up to New Hampshire for the last races of the season: the ECCC championships, hosted by UNH. Once again, we had fantastic host housing (thanks, Mom and Dad!), with a quiet place to hang out and sleep and plenty of great food. Oh, and we rode our bikes a little, too – more on that in a minute. I think we’re all sad to see the season end, but it’s been a lot of fun. Thanks to everyone who helped out – Joe and Alan for keeping things running smoothly in the conference, John Frey at Velocity Results for all of the timing, and the rest of the ECCC for hosting great races and providing solid competition and entertaining antics. And, of course, thanks to Jon Beyer for coaching us, and to everyone else on the team for riding, racing, and just being involved in Princeton Cycling.
Now for the race reports…
Saturday’s road race was in Strafford, NH, and consisted of a 20-mile figure-eight course with rolling hills and two main short but steep climbs. Men’s A raced 4 laps (80 miles), men’s B raced 3 (60 miles), and men’s C raced 2 (40 miles). Sunday’s crit was a 4-corner, 1-kilometer loop on the UNH campus in Durham and featured a small rise after turn 1 and a screaming headwind on the finishing straight.
Charlie made his second appearance of the season with us, racing in the men’s A category. He had a strong performance in the road race on Saturday, attacking in the middle of the race and splitting up the field. He spent some time in a breakaway or two, and while two Brown riders ultimately escaped to take the top two spots, Charlie rolled in with the next group to take 9th place. In Sunday’s crit, he attacked hard midway through the race and bridged to a lone RIT rider off the front, establishing the winning break of four riders that ultimately gained over 30 seconds on the main field. He sprinted in for a great 2nd-place finish.
David and Andrew (me) raced in men’s B. In Saturday’s road race, we both stuck with the pack until the end of the second lap, when a Penn State rider attacked hard up the climb to the finish and shattered the field, dropping David and me in the process. After the feed zone (thanks to Jon for a perfect water bottle handoff), I regrouped with a couple of other riders and managed to chase back to the lead group; David couldn’t quite make it, but he worked with a chase group and ended up finishing a respectable 23rd. In the lead group, we soon caught a UNH rider who had been off the front for the entire race (over 40 miles). Things then eased up for a few minutes. With about 16 miles to go in the race, I was riding near the front, pulled through, and noticed that there was no one on my wheel. I expected the gap to close quickly, but it didn’t; after thinking about my options, I let myself drift slowly off the front without making an obvious attack. When I had a little bit of room, I just put my head down, went into TT mode, and rode as hard as I could for the next 45 minutes. I was sure I’d get caught, but somehow, I managed to hold off the chasers and take my first win ever! Crossing the finish line by myself at Easterns was an awesome feeling. Sunday’s crit was much less eventful; David and I both finished with the pack in one big field sprint, while a Killington Mountain School rider built a 10-second gap on the field to take the win.
Joe and John both raced in men’s C. Joe had a good showing, hanging with the field for as long as he could and ultimately finishing only a couple of minutes behind the winner; he placed 26th in a large combined C1+C2 field of 54 riders. He was actually 12th within the C2 category, which means he grabbed a couple of points – nice! John unfortunately missed the notification about combining C fields and was late to the start line; he managed to chase back on and catch the field, but halfway through the first lap, he crashed going into a sharp left turn. While road rash is never fun, we’re glad he didn’t suffer anything worse, and he was even feeling good enough to race on Sunday. In the crit, John and Joe both found themselves a little out of position at the start, and although they worked hard to move up, they fell victim to the strong wind and were unable to catch the leaders.
Jon came as well to watch and support (and drive). Thanks, Jon!




