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…