Meaningless Things

  • Mark’s National Champ Wrap Up

    To the individual who told me at Uncle Sam GP that these emails were spam and needed to stop, know that your comment emboldened me to double down and keep this going. To everyone else who’s said in person or sent by email compliments and encouragement (who well outnumbered the complainer), your comments kept this going and made me excited to do these every week.

    There are no spoilers for the elite races below, you can find those details elsewhere, like in the Bulletin.

    Day one on Tuesday was the non-championship races before the rain came, with Brad Young 9th in the 50+.

    Day two brought us the baby masters and the rain… and the mud. Nate Porter got early belled and was finished first. Unfortunately, he ended up one lap down, finishing 14th in the Men’s 30-34. In the Men’s 35-39, Jeff K did the same thing, ending up 17th, while Nick Groll finished 13th on the lead lap. In the “actual” Masters, Terry Blanchet finished 22nd in the 60-64 and Brad Young finished 5th on the wide angle podium in the 65-69.

    In Thursday’s Collegiate Club Race, Pat Frank finished 6th while wearing his Catamounts kit.

    On Friday, Ryan Conley rounded out the Goon squad delegation at Nats with his 19th-place finish in the Men’s 40-44, and Peter Dinolfo finished 26th in the 45-49. In the 55-59, Lance Law finished 23rd, while the 50-54 (which was won by Adam Myerson) saw Bret Young finish in 51st place, still on the lead lap.

    In the Women’s 13-14, we had Lilli O’Donnell and Maddie Hanna, as well as Anne-Sophie Laloe. Lilli got a good start and slotted in fourth or fifth on the road, and worked her way up to fourth by the time the group got to pit 1. At that point though first and second had put a large gap, which just extended throughout the day. From the TV, it looked like Lilli was on her B bike after lap 2, and Erin Faccone mentioned seeing mud on her side. By the end of the third lap though she had gotten back within 15 seconds of third place but ended up finishing about 30 seconds down from third and two and a half minutes down from the blistering pace set by the leader (she was second last year in this category). Maddie, unfortunately, did not get any airtime, but she finished in lucky thirteenth place, one lap down, and Anne-Sophie finished in 25th.

    In the Men’s 11-12, we had Chase O’Donnell and Parker Ruppe (my apologies to Parker for missing him in last weekend’s preview). Chase took the holeshot after the light turned green, with first and second putting a gap on by the time they got to the pit 1 exit. By 2/3rds of the way through the lap, Chase was all alone off the front (splits are hard to estimate on TV, and then the director decided Chase was boring and gave the triplets behind him more TV time) but at the end of the first of three laps had a 15-second lead, extending to 40 seconds at the second lap, and 45 seconds at the finish. (Chase I saw that tongue when you were on the pavement before the second half of your last lap!) Brad Sohner said Chase’s post-race interview was one of the best he’s seen. Like Maddie, I couldn’t see much of Parker after the start, but he finished 34th, 2 laps down.

    Finally, for my Saturday morning viewing, we had the Women’s 11-12, with Liddy Breslin, Hannah Dinolfo, Lilly Hanna, Ava Koniowka, and Abby Romlein. Abby slotted in behind the Cole sisters at the start, ending up around sixth place after pit 1, until an unhelpful slip in the mud by a rider ahead of her caused a delay before the first run-up (just after Katherine Hepburn’s course crossing), separating her from the first 5 on the road. Ava also looked to get snarled in a different pile-up in the muddy rut just prior to pit 1. By the end of the first lap, the top 4 riders were all spaced about 20 seconds apart with Abby just 5 seconds behind 4th place. After the second lap, Abby fell behind the Finkraft rider into sixth place, staying there until the end. Lilly finished in eighth, Hannah in 15th, Liddy in 18th, and Ava in 24th, one lap down. Side note, Anna (the winner) finished second to Lilli last year.

    I didn’t stick around to watch the Men’s SSCX, but I did see that Jerry Warner (or was it Kenny?) won, and Tommy Servetas finished 18th.

    Sunday morning brought the Men’s and Women’s 17-18 races, followed by the Men’s U23. From my couch, it smells like the 80% rule was in effect today based on the lap results. In the Men’s race, Jacob Gilson finished 62nd, two laps down. After that in the Women’s race, Haylee Johnson finished in 12th, with Maya Healy finishing 25th, two laps down. And for the final race covered in this email (Men’s U23), Jack Carey finally set his team name in Bikereg to CBRC to make him easy to find and finished in 45th, behind Pat Frank who finished 35th (wearing bib 123).

    These have been a lot of fun to put together this year, and definitely something I’m going to bring back next season! Everyone now go enjoy the off-season / fat bike season!

  • Mark’s occasional CX update – open job posting for subject line authors

    This update was initially posted to the CBRC mailing list. Find out more about the club at CBRC.cc.

    I bet there were at least two individuals on the mailing list who thought they wouldn’t have to put up with me this week, but they were wrong! (*evil supervillain cackling*) There’s still racing, and there are still CBRC & Friends doing those races, and #crossisstillhere, and so am I. 

    In North Carolina, at the appropriately named North Carolina Grand Prix, Haylee Johnson competed both days in the UCI Juniors. On both days, she finished directly behind her teammate Finley: on Saturday in 4th and Sunday in 5th. With 118 UCI points, she’s ranked 19th in the world and 7th among North American juniors.

    Closer to home at the Secret Squirrel in eastern Massachusetts, Terry Blanchet doubled up between the single speed and the “Grey Beards” (I love unsanctioned race category names!).

    And not to be outdone in the old guy category, Bret and Brad Young were at Shedd Park Cyclocross in northeastern Massachusetts, racing in the 50+ and 60+ fields and finishing 9th and 2nd. (Sanctioned races have such boring category names.)

    And, of course, Andy is out with the juniors in the dark, getting them tuned up for Nationals in just two more weeks!

    (For those wondering: yes, you can use the length of this post when vying for a trainer discount from Jermey. Gary, if I didn’t know better, I’d think you somehow made my laptop battery go spicy pillow to prevent this email from going out.)

  • Mark’s (but not CX’s) season closer – Noho day 2

    This update was initially posted to the CBRC mailing list. Find out more about the club at CBRC.cc.

    Sunday morning at Noho felt more like Wicked Creepy weather: cold, rainy, and breezy. The morning racers squeezed the falling moisture into the turf, making a weird kind of mud in the field and keeping the upper terrace interesting. By afternoon though, the precipitation had stopped, the sun was teasing to come out, and the wind was picking up. Just before the men’s elite race started, I tested the sand by our tent compound, and it was almost dry!

    But back to that cold, miserable rain – the Men’s 4/5 and 13-16 Junior Boys. Josh Foust finished 60th, with Jason Hanna in 65th behind him. Paul Koniowka finished in 91st, one lap down, after losing a fight with a sandbag. Chase O’Donnell finished 10th in the juniors, with a time that would have made him 45th on the road overall after making up the start gap. James Healey finished a lap down in 31st place.

    In the Women’s 4/5, CBRC was represented by Maya Healey, who came in 21st, and NYCROSS alum Melinda Wetzel was shortly behind in 27th place. There was more action behind them, though, as the 13-16 Girls were on course, with both the 9-12 boys and girls behind them. Abby Romlein returned to the podium today after taking 3rd, with Maddy Hanna behind in 8th. Unfortunately, Jack was unable to seek revenge on his brakes today, but Parker Ruppe finished 9th in the 9-12 boys. Lillian Hanna won the 9-12 girls, with Hannah Dinolfo in 4th and Ava and Michalea Koniowka in 6th and 7th.

    The Young brothers came out to the Pioneer Valley this morning, with Bret Young taking 38th in the 40+ and Brad Young in 10th place in the 55+. Also, in the 55+, Lance Law finished 16th, and Dave Beals finished 54th.

    Today’s Cat 3 Women’s race was better than yesterday’s UCI Elite Women’s race. Lilli O’Donnell avenged her defeat yesterday by building a commanding lead of almost 90 seconds over Annie Hines and coming around Joanne Grogan (who started with a 1-minute advantage) to be first overall. (And giving Colette Sexton a free tow up to Joanne on the way) Claire O’Leary finished 13th and returns home to Minnesota to race gravel or something in the spring.

    The Goons did not meet squad status today, with several non-starters. Of those who did start, Jacob McCarthy was 14th, Jack Carey was 24th, Niles Gagnon was 26th (on a single speed, of course.), Peter Dinolfo was 36th to make up the lead lap, and Nate Porter and Jeff K were one lap down in 45th and 46th place. Jeff will probably be lighting up my DMs shortly, complaining he scored 427 points when he needed to finish 40th to improve his points.

    Haylee Johnson raced up in her first UCI C2 elite race, finishing 22nd on the lead lap!

    Pat Frank finished 22nd in the men’s elite, ahead of Andrew Nicholas in 29th (the first among the riders to be 80%’d).

    Nationals are in 3 weeks! STAY STOKED!

  • Mark’s fiber-enriched CX updates – Noho day 1

    This update was initially posted to the CBRC mailing list. Find out more about the club at CBRC.cc.

    Hurricane Nicole’s remnants made the drive over “interesting” and gave bikes left outside at hotels overnight a complimentary bath, but if you were in the field at Look Park today, you wouldn’t know. And when was the last time you walked around Noho in shorts and a t-shirt? But enough gawking at the weather – let’s talk about the racing!

    Starting the morning off on a field that wasn’t frosty was the Cat 4/5 men, with the 13-16 boys a minute behind (we’ll get back to the consequences of that). The Cat 4/5 field had 96 racers, with 25 13-16 boys behind them. (Is cross back?) All our favorite riders in the 4/5 finished on the lead lap, with Josh Foust in 54th, Jason Hanna in 73rd, and Paul Koniowka in 83rd. In the 13-16 boys, Chase O’Donnell finished 7th after their field caught the back of the 4/5 Men at the finish arch, and he had to work his way through traffic on the first lap. 

    Next on the schedule were the 4/5 Women (41 racers), the 13-16 girls (16), and the 9-12 boys and girls (28). In the 13-16 girls, Abby Romlein was second into the turn to club row on the first lap and stayed there for the rest of the race, finishing 30 seconds down. Maddie Hanna finished 6th, 2 minutes down on Abby. In the 9-12 boys, Jack O’Donnell finished 6th after a mechanical, with Parker Ruppe in 14th. Jack told me he seeks to avenge this result tomorrow. The CBRC field in the 9-12 girls made up half the race, with Lillian Hanna and Hannah Dinolfo finishing 1-2, Liddy Breslin in 4th, and Ava and Michalea Koniowka in 6th and 8th.

    In the Men’s Masters race, Lance Law lead the party in 13th place, Terry Blanchet in 28th, and Dave Beals in 60th. (Sorry, guys, I didn’t pay much attention to your race)

    Then it was the Women’s turn! In the UCI Juniors, Haylee Johnson finished 25 seconds down. Greta started slowing down, though; with another lap, Haylee might have made it a sprint. In the Women’s Cat 3, Lilli O’Donnell had a first lap bobble that cost her about 15 seconds. By the end of the race, she and Annie Hines had rode up to and then through the Master’s Women leaders, with Lilli getting within 6 seconds of Annie before finishing in second, with third place 90 seconds behind her. Claire O’Leary finished 16th.

    The Goon Squad next attacked the “memory foam mud” (Claire’s term for it). Leader of the Goons, Ryan Conley, finished in 8th place, followed by Jacob McCarthy in 12th, Nick Groll in 19th, Scott McGill’s pit mechanic Jack Carey in 27th, and Nate Porter in 39th. Jeff K was the first one to finish, being the lead rider one lap down and getting scored in 46th (then complaining about his points!).

    If you didn’t see the UCI Women’s race, that sucks. The STF duo of Lizzie and Raylen was joined by Ava Holmgren, racing up from the Junior field. The trio was together and alone, separated from Austin Killips’ group by a handful of seconds until the last lap. After taking the bell, Ava railed that first right turn taking just Killips with her through the rest of the course until the barriers, until Killips passed Ava on the outside of the last left U-turn to her first UCI win. (Before Killips joined the trio, you had 3 PanAm champs riding together at the front of the race)

    Bruner won in the UCI Men’s race after launching at 3 to go. (He sat up and moved to the back of the group as they went around the tree after the barriers, then tail gunned from the back while going across towards Pit 2, taking Curtis with him.) Further back, Pat Frank finished 22nd on the lead lap, and Andrew Nicholas finished 35th, getting pulled right as Bruner lept off.

    The weather for tomorrow doesn’t look like Noho weather, but we’re getting closer (honestly looks more like Wicked Creepy weather). The most likely precip will be in the early morning, dropping off by the Cat 3 races, without a lot of total rain (a quarter inch at the most total between 2 am and 2 pm). I probably won’t be choosing shorts to stand around and heckle tomorrow.

    See everyone in the morning!

  • Mark’s CX Update – Return from the Cape

    This update was initially posted to the CBRC mailing list. Find out more about the club at CBRC.cc.

    Another day of weather more appropriate for Virginia’s Blue Ridge GO Cross brought us the finale of the USCX series on the second day of the Really Rad Festival of Cyclocross. With Daylight Savings Time ending overnight, today’s schedule shifted back an hour and started with the Junior race at 7 am. (I was most definitely still in bed.)

    In the Girls 13-14, Maddy Hanna finished 2nd today, which got her into a tie for third place in the series! In the Boys 11-12, Chase O’Donnell won with five seconds over Hudson in second place. Unfortunately, the top three boys attended Virginia’s Blue Ridge GO Cross, which gave them enough margin over Chase that he couldn’t overcome and ended up fourth in the series. Additionally, Parker Ruppe finished 23rd after his appearance at Rochester. In the Girls 11-12, Abby Romelein was able to split the Cole sisters to finish second. Further back in the field, Lilly Hanna and Liddy Breslin finished 5th and 6th, and Ava Koniowka finished 9th. Abby’s second today tied her with Lilly Cole for second in the series! (The series tech guide does not cover breaking ties.) Lilly Hanna, Ava Koniowka, Liddy Breslin, and Michalea Koniowka finished 5th through 8th in the series, with Hannah Dinolfo in 11th. Jack O’Donnell continued his dominance and swept in all the races he entered in the 9-10 Boys, finishing with 300 points. Ethan Romlein came in second, 82 seconds behind Jack for second place, putting him in 5th place overall in the series with just one appearance. Emma Breslin finished second in both the Girls 9-10 race today and the series overall. 

    In the Women’s Cat 4/5, NYCROSS alums and UVM riders Maggie Payne and Melinda Wetzel came in 4th and 24th. 

    None of the watched riders raced in the Men’s Masters field today, but here is a rundown of their series standings: Lance Law finished in a 5-way tie for 97th place in the 50+, while Dave Beals finished 61st and Terry Blanchet finished 89th in the 60+.

    The next race on the schedule after lunch (early enough to be brunch!) break was the UCI Juniors and Women’s Cat 3. Haylee Johnson held on for an 8th-place finish, giving her second place in the series! In the Women’s Cat 3, two CXHAIRS Devo riders took off, leaving Lilli O’Donnell chasing Annie Hines for third and fourth place. If you look at their head-to-head on Crossresults, Lilli has beaten Annie in their last five encounters coming into this weekend. Unfortunately, Lilli ended up separating from Annie after the first couple of laps, finishing about 20 seconds down, making the head-to-head score 5 to 2 after duplicating their placing from yesterday. Lilli ended up 4th in the series overall, even with the missed Virginia’s Blue Ridge GO Cross points. Claire O’Leary (nee Walling) decided to cut the zip tie on her B bike and race that, coming in 15th. Maya Healy didn’t race today but finished the series in 12th place.

    GOONS! Nate Porter suffered an early (forced) mechanical taking him out of the race but making him first to the beer garden. Ryan Conley lead the remaining squad across the bell lap, finishing a lap later in 9th place. Nick Groll was the first rider to finish one lap down, finishing 10th after barely missing the cut to finish on the lead lap. Following Nick through the early finish were Jacob McCarthy (13th), Ryan O’Donnell (17th), Jack Carey (20th), and Jeff K (25th). In the overall series, Ryan Conley and Nick finished 3rd and 4th, but the riders in the first two places had earned points at Charm City. Elsewhere in the overall standings, Nate finished 29th with one more point than Jeff in 31st, Peter Dinolfo in 36th, Ryan O’Donnell in 49th, and Jack in 81 (with his only entry in the series being this weekend). Not racing this weekend, Jacob Gilson finished 20th in the series for the UCI Juniors.

    That puts a wrap on my USCX-based drivel. I bet the individual(s) who have expressed annoyance with these emails won’t even read this far to hear they’re over. (Haha, they’re not! I’m going to keep going through nationals. #notsorry)

    Looking ahead to next week: New England Cyclocross World Championships are coming up, and it seems like it will be wet! You should check that those Limus are mounted and ready to go! (As of when I looked at dinner, the models seemed to agree about an inch-ish of rain, but they were not so confident on arrival time, ranging from overnight Fri -> Sat to Sat daytime) The Cat 4/5 men fields have sold out on both days! YAY! CROSS IS BACK, BABY! (They didn’t sell out last year, which, I won’t lie, had me chewing my fingernails a bit.)

    See everyone out there Saturday morning!

  • Mark’s CX Update – Down the Cape Edition

    This update was initially posted to the CBRC mailing list. Find out more about the club at CBRC.cc.

    Based on a consensus of individuals asked during the Men’s Elite race today, I’m sending an edition out tonight covering the Pan Ams yesterday and today’s C1 race. Look forward to another edition tomorrow covering the C2! (Bwahahahaha) Also, math for the USCX series standing for the men’s elite field is further down, if that’s all you’re interested in.

    Friday was the Pan American Cyclocross Championships. Initially scheduled in Costa Rica for this weekend, issues with that venue and the promoter resulted in the cancellation of that race. Fortunately, Pan Ams is just three and a half-ish hours away.

    Various people who I usually write about raced: In the (many) Master’s Men fields, Lance Law came in twelfth in the 55-59, and Terry Blanchet came in ninth in the 60-64. Two NYCROSS alumni, Tommy Servetas and Pat Frank, finished 17th and 20th in the U23 Men. And in the last race of the day, Curtis White finished second after Bruner seemingly attached a JATO bottle to his bike and took off with about 3 to go (I forgot if it was 2 or 3 to go, I wasn’t taking notes – subscribe and support the CXHairs Bulletin for actual reporting).

    Saturday morning’s racing started bright and early with the Junior races, with CBRC well represented with nine riders across the fields. (I didn’t make it over to the venue to watch myself, but I was able to follow along from Ryan’s IG Stories) After a thundering start and holding the lead for a lap, Chase O’Donnell ended up second in the 11-12 boys, while Jack O’Donnell took the win in the 9-10 with a comfortable 97-second lead over Ethan Romlein in second. Maddy Hanna finished fourth in the 13-14, while the 11-12 squad consisted of Lilly Hanna, Abigail Romlein, Liddy Breslin, Ava Koniowka, and Michalea Koniowka in 3rd, 4th, 6th, 7th, and 10th places. (CBRC made up just shy of half of this field!) Emma Breslin finished 2nd in the 9-10 girls.

    The next race of potential interest to readers was the Men 40+ (3/4/5), where Lance Law finished 5th and Paul Koniowka finished 53rd. The Women’s 4/5 field had two NYCROSS alum in it, both representing UVM: Maggie Payne finished 9th and Melinda Wetzel finished 25th, while in the Master’s Men 60+, Terry Blanchet came in 23rd.

    The next race of the day was the Junior Women UCI, Cat 3 Women, and Single Speed Women. In the order they were on the road: In the UCI Junior field, after a half lap on her B bike, Haylee Johnson finished 12th. After some confusion during staging (😇), temporarily adopted CBRC member Claire O’Leary (nee Walling 😁) took off with the Single Speed women – after Leslie put a half lap into Claire and Holly (getting mixed up into the UCI Juniors), Claire dropped Holly at the sand pit on the bell lap for second place, getting to hear the dulcet tones of Brad Sohner call her name for the podium. Starting 1 minute behind the SSCX field was the Cat 3 Women’s field, with Lilli O’Donnell having a front-row call-up. Unfortunately, she missed the podium by 77 seconds to finish fourth.

    GOON SQUAD TIME! (Men’s Cat 3) Ryan Conley lead the charge in the CBRC pack for all of the laps I saw, finishing 11th. Jacob McCarthy followed Ryan on the road (and in my IG stories), finishing 16th, fifteen seconds ahead of Nick Groll in 17th. A late race shakeup resulted in Nate Porter in 22nd ahead of Ryan O’Donnell in 26th. Jeff K and Jack Carey rounded out the CBRC contingent in 34th and 41st.

    In the UCI Elite Men’s field, a crash at the start took out Andrew Nicholas and Pat Frank. A few laps later, Tommy Servetas pulled out as well. Eric Bruner put in an attack with about 4 to go, getting a gap over Curtis that ended up being 31 seconds at the end of the race (it had gotten much larger at one point but I’m on vacation so I didn’t write it down).

    As promised, some hypothetical math for the USCX Series overall. Coming into this weekend, Curtis was ahead of Eric Bruner, 212 to 193. Since today was a C1, the USCX series allocated 50 points for the win and 42 points for second place. This shrunk Curtis’s gap to 11 points, 254 to 243. Tomorrow’s a C2, so the point schedule is different – 40, 32, and 28 for the top three places. Assuming Eric wins, Curtis would need to finish second (he needs 30 points to avoid the tie-break rule – a third place only gives 28 points). Assuming Eric gets second, Curtis needs to finish at worst fifth.

    Full overall series recap in tomorrow’s email! (I bet you’re glad.)

  • Mark’s quasi-regular CX Update – CBRCX Series Finalie Edition

    This was originally posted to the CBRC mailing list. Find out more about the club at CBRC.cc

    Yesterday’s Bethlehem Cup marks the finale of the CBRCX Series for 2022! If you thought that would be the end of my annoying emails, you are sorely mistaken because there’s six more weeks of ‘cross! (ish, date math is hard)

    Semi-related side note that I’m putting up here to hopefully get eyes before you delete this spam: If you have feedback on the series, I’d love to hear it to assemble ahead of the 2023 promoters meeting. Please reply to me off list. This could be anything from the scoring format to the daily schedule.

    Facebook says it’s Berry Koblenz‘s birthday today (I make no claims to the accuracy of this statement). You should go support him and check out the photos he took yesterday: https://www.basetwelvephoto.com/bethlehemcup2022

    Series results, as always, are available at https://bikereg.holeshotevents.com/series-results/cbrcx-2022.pdf

    Running down the day like last week –

    Dwight Cheu made his 2022 cyclocross debut with his fourth-place finish, followed by Josh Foust in sixth, Rosie the Riveter Maddie Hanna in seventh, and a guy in lederhosen Jason Hanna in nineth.

    In the Master’s 40+, Patrick Carney had just a 62 second lead over Ben Savoie in the series going into this race, but at the end with his 13 second win over Ben (plus 5 bonus seconds), he was able to win the race and the series. Jeff Andritz, probably still on New Zealand time, jumped into this race for a third-place finish.

    In the 50+, Bret Young had a mathematical lock in the series as long as he took the start. He did take the start, and finished third in the race, losing 9 seconds to Scott Lawrence (who was second place in the series and at the finish) which was well within the margin needed for him to close the series too. Behind Bret was Lance Law and John Scicchitano for fourth and fifth in the race.

    In the 60+, Brad Young put almost 90 seconds into second place to win the race, with Terry Blanchet crossing in third in that field. This consistent performance from Brad, Tucker from BV, and Terry resulted in them finishing 1, 2, 3 in the series as well.

    Next up was the Women’s 4/5, with Sarah Romlein’s win over Jessica Hanna and Stacy Wozniak. That wasn’t enough to upset the series though, with Jessica winning the overall and Stacy rebounding from 7th to finish third.

    The Men’s 4/5, Single Speed, and Men’s U19 went off next, being our biggest race on the road (I think. Definitely biggest race with adults). If you haven’t seen Dwight’s video from the bottom of the off camber during the first lap, you can find it here on Facebook (Maybe. I don’t know how Facebook works but I think that’s a direct link to the post in the club group).

    As I alluded to last week, Ben Savoie was only about 3 minutes down on Bill Deerfield in the series coming into yesterday’s race and a potential spoiler in this category as well. That wasn’t a problem for Bill though, who came in fourth behind Lilli O’Donnell in third. Working back through the field, Tyler Romlein was seventh, Chase O’Donnell was tenth behind Eric Abbale, Jeff Andritz was out for a second race and finished nineteenth, Josh Foust in his second race of the day was twenty-second, and Paul Koniowka was thirtieth. In the end, Bill finished first in the series with about 5 minutes over Ben, with Lilli making up the lost time from not entering at Nomad to finish third. (Jeff – was this your jet lag coping strategy?)

    In the Single Speed, Brad Young had a ten-minute advantage over Niles Gagnon after Hometown last week. Mathmatically, this just meant Brad had to start in order to win the series, but that wasn’t actually a problem, as both of them worked their way through traffic to finish two-three, with Bret Young, Tom Butler, Terry Blanchet rounding out the top six. Past member Jason Van Staveren dusted off his ‘cross skills from 2014 to hit the track again, finishing seventh. Tom was able to makeup enough time to move up to third in the series, making the podium a sweep of CBRC and friends (for my definition of friends).

    Worthy mention that since no one wanted to jump in, Joanne Grogan‘s lead in the Single Speed Women was unchallenged from Nomad. (If you run SRAM, (a) I’m sorry, and (b) I always have zip ties in the trailer!)

    In the Men’s U19, James Healey represented CBRC, finishing third.

    Making his U-turn from the 4/5 finish back to staging for the Junior race, Chase O’Donnell stormed to victory in the U15 Boys, ahead of the BV army (seriously – 2nd-6th in the series). In the U15 Girls, MaddieHanna won in her second race of the day and clinched her series overall, ahead of Anne-Sophie Laloe (Saratoga Shredders) and Shayla Butler – both in yesterday’s race and the series. Jack O’Donnell won the U13 Boys race ahead of Marco Leone, Parker Ruppe, and Ethan Romlein through fourth place, and Alex Southwick in sixth. The U13 Boys series podium was Jack, Parker, and Alex. Abigail Romlein won the U13 Girls ahead of *takes breath*Lillian Hanna, Liddy Breslin, Ava Koniowka, Hannah Dinolfo, Willow Wozniak, Shelby Fronhofer (Grey Ghost), Zoe Laloe, and Michalea Koniowka. This resulted in a series podium of Abigail, Lillian, and Hannah.

    At lunch, I missed out on Ryan Conley‘s delicious ribs, but I could smell them 🤤! (I was able to get some from the afternoon batch, that’s how I know they were delicious!) But more importantly, and I know I’m going to miss people here because I didn’t pay enough attention to what was going on, but huge kudos to Ryan O’Donnell and company for putting together the Flow Rider Fondos all year long. I think that if I was still on my 14″ Kent, going out on the “big kid course” would be really cool and I couldn’t wait until I was 8 (because racing age 9 is the minimum to compete) to be able to do it for real. (Also, it saves the RD from having to allocate stakes, space, tape, and time to the kids’ course, and that’s pretty cool for the adults.)

    After lunch was the Men’s 3/4. I’m having a hard time coming up with prose to describe what happened, but here’s the result: (Evan also seemed dubious of evaluation of his time using IAAF rules instead of considering his “helmet throw”)

    Anyway, back to the rest of the non-disqualified participants while Evan reads up on rules 1N4 and 1N11. Peter Dinolfo won this race, cementing his series victory. Finishing on the road behind Peter were Jared Stritsman, collegiate wunderkind Sam Lasher, Sean Mcloughlin, and Niles Gagnon. Course designer Jimmy Leone finished eighth. The chicken Jeff Andritz jumped into his third race of the day for a lap, making his total time racing on course 1:44:54 across 10 laps. For the series overall the podium consisted of Peter and Sean on the top two steps.

    The Women’s 1/2/3/4 field consisting of Lilli O’Donnell and Maya Healey, resulted in them finishing in that order, and finishing the series in that order as well. Watch out though because Maddie plans to jump into this race next year!

    The final race of the day, Men’s 1/2/3, was a nail biter as far as the series goes. (Patrick Collins, a Cat 1 from NE made the front of the race not very interesting to write about) What was interesting to write about was what was happening with the series overall! Coming into this race, Ryan O’Donnell had 25 seconds on Jacob McCarthy and a 2:30 lead over Andrew Nicholas. The first lap offers 15 bonus seconds for first across the line which was awarded to Andrew, meaning that Ryan had to stay within 2:15 of Andrew to maintain his lead. The VizViewer graph of the race is below – after a first lap bobble, Ryan was battling back until the end to close that gap.

    Unfortunately, it wasn’t quite enough, with Ryan O’Donnell finishing 3:11 down on Andrew Nicholas, catapulting Andrew to the overall for the series. The CBRC group ride followed Ryan in, with rib-master Ryan Conley, Nicholas Groll, Nate Porter, Jacob McCarthy, Jeff Krywanczyk, and Jack Carey closing out the race. The series podium ended up with Andrew, Ryan O’Donnell, Jacob, Jeff K, and Ryan Conley.

    Looking ahead, next weekend is Pan Ams and the finale of the USCX Series at Really Rad. Registration closes on Wednesday! Cough, you know who you are. For a refresher on the series standings, Patrick Frank is in 32nd in the Elite Men and Tommy Servetas is in 81st with 4 points after Rochester. Jacob Gilson is in 16th in the UCI Junior Men, and Haylee Johnson is in 4th in the UCI Junior Women. In the U11 categories, Jack O’Donnell leads the boys, and Emma Breslin is in 5th in the girls. In the U13 boys, Chase O’Donnell is in 7th along with Parker Ruppe in 20th. Abigail Romlein is tied for second in the U13 girls, along with Lillian Hanna, Hannah Dinolfo, Ava Koniowka, Michalea Koniowka, and Liddy Breslin in 7th, 8th, 10th, 11th, and 14th respectively. Maddie Hanna is tied for 6th in the U15 girls, while Maya Healey is in 12th for the U19 girls. The Cat 3 goon squad is represented by Ryan Conley, Nick Groll, Jeff K, Nate Porter, and Ryan O’Donnell in 16th, 17th, 35th, 38th, and 73rd. In the Women’s 3 field, Lilli O’Donnell is in 7th.

    I’ll be out Friday afternoon to spectate, then loitering around like a bored monkey Saturday and Sunday (and happy to offer swanny or pit services to anyone who asks except Lilli).

    The week following is New England Worlds North Hampton International, which is always a frosty good time. Registration for that race closes next Thursday.

    Gary – no fiber was consumed in order to prepare this email. (But some Halloween candy was)

    I can’t believe people like reading 1700 words of my drivel…

  • Mark’s Occasional CX Update

    This was originally posted to the CBRC mailing list. Find out more about the club at CBRC.cc

    Or are they regular now? Still haven’t been banned from the mailing list yet so…

    First, an apology to those who raced at Salt City last weekend. Apparently, some races still take a week to post results online. On Saturday, Terry Blanchet came in third in the NYS CX championship for 60+ Masters, and in Sunday’s non-championship race he came in second. I didn’t see any other familiar names, sorry if I missed anyone.

    And now to this weekend, starting far from home and working closer. In Ohio at Kings CX Haylee Johnson raced in the UCI Junior Women’s fields both days, finishing sixth on Saturday and third on Sunday. Meanwhile in Maryland, Terry Blanchet and Bryna Blanchard competed in the Marathon MTB national championships, finishing 11th in the 55-59 Men and 3rd in the 45-49 Women, respectively.

    Which brings us to Hometown CX, the penultimate race in the CBRCX Series! Working our way through the order of the day…

    The day started off with the Men’s Cat 5 race, where Madeline Hanna passed up the opportunity of a Snickers bar to beat her father Jason Hanna for 6th and 7th. (And, scored herself 526 points!) The race was won by Oskar Zorn in his first cyclocross race, and he’s also signed up for Bethlehem.

    In the Masters’ fields, Patrick Carney came in second in the 40+. He maintains a 62 second lead over Ben Savoie from CNYC in the series. Bret Young also came in second in the 50+, and he maintains a 15-minute lead over second place in that series. Breaking the pattern, Brad Young won the 60+ (and was first on the road overall), but like his brother maintains a 15-minute lead over second place in that series.

    Jessica Hanna maintains her lead in the Women’s 4/5 series with her second place behind Maya Healey.

    The biggest field of the day was the Men’s 4/5 race. Jack Quinlan from Berkshire Velo suffered a first lap mechanical, did a lap on his mountain bike, then chased back to win the race after returning to his A bike. Speaking of “chase” (sorry), Chase O’Donnell came in third, after hopping the barriers for all(?) the laps (more on that in a second). The remainder of the first CBRC clump was made up of Tyler Romlein (who spent the first couple of laps with Chase at the front) and Bill Deerfield. Further back, Eric Abbale lead in Lilli O’Donnell who suffered an early mishap for 10th and 11th respectively, and Paul Koniowka rounded out the contingent in 19th. Bill maintains his lead in the series over Ben Savoie by 4 minutes. (Ben could be quite a spoiler next week!)

    Intermixed in the 4/5 field were those who chose not to embrace technology and scoff at derailleurs. Race director Niles Gagnon put his promoter watts to use to win with 50 seconds over Bret Young. Niles now holds an 11-minute lead in the series over Brad Young who came in 3rd. Rounding out that field was Tom Butler in 5th.

    JUNIOR RACE TIME! Chase O’Donnell finished the 4/5 race, then U-turned back to the start to line up for the U15 Boys, which he then won 2 laps (and 2 bunny hops?) later. Jack O’Donnell finished second in the U13 Boys ahead of Parker Ruppe and Alex Southwick in 6th and 7th. Madeline Hanna won the U15 Girls ahead of Shayla Butler in third, while the CBRC team made up all but one place in the U13 girls; Abigail Romlein, Lillian Hanna, Hannah Dinolfo, Liddy Breslin, and Ava Koniowka taking 1st-5th, and Willow Wozniak, Emma Breslin, and Michalea Koniowka taking 7th-9th. In the series, Jack has a 13-minute lead on Parker, Abigail has just over 3 minutes on Lillian, Chase has 25 minutes over Noah Stover from Berkshire Velo, and Madeline has 7 minutes over Anne-Sophie Laloe from Saratoga Shredders.

    After lunch, Peter Dinolfo won the Men’s 3/4 ahead of Sean Mcloughlin in second, Lance Law in fifth, and Evan Boyle in eighth. In the series, Peter maintains his approximately 15-minute lead over Sean.

    In the Women’s 1/2/3/4, Lilli and Maya both doubled up, with Lilli leading both the race and the series over Maya by 22 minutes (mathematically locking her win).
    In the Men’s 1/2/3, the CBRC group ride was lead by

    Jacob McCarthy coming in 3rd, and following directly behind and in finishing order by Ryan Conley, Nicholas Groll, Nate Porter, Ryan O’Donnell, Jacob Gilson, Jack Carey, Jeff K, and Peter Dinolfo (who was doubling up). Jacob is only down 25 seconds on Ryan now for the series overall. Full series standings are online at https://bikereg.holeshotevents.com/series-results/cbrcx-2022.pdf

    It’s shaping up for a good weekend at Bethlehem! Register now, and maybe I’ll stop sending out these annoying ramblings. https://www.bikereg.com/bethlehem-cup-cyclocross

  • Mark’s occasional cyclocross update: the really short version

    This was originally posted to the CBRC mailing list. Find out more about the club at CBRC.cc

    According to CrossResults no one raced this weekend. That means everyone should be well rested for Hometown this weekend!

    Register now, make Niles happy: https://www.bikereg.com/56994

  • Mark’s occasional CX update – Uncle Sam GP

    This was originally posted to the CBRC mailing list. Find out more about the club at CBRC.cc

    Not enough people complained about the return of last week’s email, so here’s another one! Not sorry.

    This one is close to my heart as the co-RD for the two years prior to 2020. Nick and team did an excellent job putting this race together and it was a blast to see (and score)!

    Kind of want to just send this one image then walk away (and I bet you want me to do that too):

    But no, sorry, you get to put up with another UPDATE WORD COUNT HERE words out of me. To make it less miserable, here’s the punch lines:

    If I listed individual race results, I think I’d be listing every club member, so I think the best story lines might be drawn from the CBRCX series standings. (Thank you everyone for coming out and supporting our club’s series!)

    In the Master’s 40+, Patrick Carney leads by 2 minutes after getting 10 bonus seconds today. Bret Young leads the Master’s 50+ by 14ish minutes. Brad Young leads the 60+ by 9 minutes over Terry Blanchet.

    In the Women’s 4/5, Briana Denny rode from the Rensselaer Amtrak station to yesterday’s race, and after today leads the series by 56 seconds over Jessica Hanna (and rumor has it she rode back to the train station from today’s race).

    Honorary(?) CBRC member and Union College rider Jack Carey (let’s go U! RPI sucks!) leads the 4/5 over Bill Deerfield by 4 minutes and continues his sweep of the first lap primes. Thankfully for those in the field, Jack has hit his points to upgrade to a 3 so he might not be bothering you in this field for the last two races. Lilli O’Donnell has worked her way up to 4th in that series with this weekend’s efforts (taking the second-place bonus seconds both days).

    In the Single Speed men, No. 22 holds the top two places with Brad Young and Santiago Carral with 6 minutes between them, and sevenish ahead of Niles “I don’t understand the concept of a derailleur” Gagnon. No women entered the single speed category this weekend, so JoGro maintains her place in that series (zip ties are a thing!).

    In the junior fields, Chase and Jack O’Donnell both have healthy leads in the U15 (21 minutes) and U13 (9 minutes) series respectively. The top eight spots in the U13 Girls are held by CBRC Juniors, with Abigail Romlein and Madeline Hanna leading the U13 and U15 fields. (Madeline continues her streak of taking the maximum bonus seconds on the first lap too)

    Peter Dinolfo leads the Men’s 3/4 field ahead of Sean McLoughlin by 15 minutes. (Sean lost 15 minutes on Peter with his DNS yesterday… just putting that out there).

    Lilli O’Donnell continues to hold her lead in the Women’s 1/2/3/4, with 17 minutes over Maya Healey. Rumor has it she collected at least an extra $5 on the barriers today.

    Continuing the O’Donnell household dominance, Ryan O’Donnell leads the Men’s 1/2/3 by just shy of 2 minutes over Jacob McCarthy, with another 90 seconds to Jeff K. (the scoring rewards consistency!)

    Individual stories from today, as captured from the finish camera:

    After barely losing the first lap prime (0.012 seconds), Jurgen Beneke demonstrated the benefits of having a mechanic in the pit, as Karl from VeloFix was able to replace his derailleur hanger and get him back on course in 1 lap (8ish minutes):

    If you didn’t see my post on Facebook, during the Men’s 3/4 Evan Boyle demonstrated excellent roadie form coming up the finish straight. Even after rolling a tub and running a good portion of the lap to the pit, he finished only 1 minute down on Sean.

    See everyone in 2 weeks at Hometown in Glens Falls! If you’re not signed up yet… just find my rant from last Monday about why I think that’s a bad thing. https://www.bikereg.com/hometowncx