BROOKLYN  VELO  FORCE
Kissena Prospect Park Series
July 24, 2005

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 after riding the breakaway... shavasana

Race Report by Scott Demel Plenty of BVF'ers in the CAT4 field today - regulars Seth, Norm, Joel, and myself, with new riders Andrew and Daniel.  Dennis and Jonathan rode the 5's.  For this 10 lap race, we're all eyeing the 4 field at the start: it is a smallish group of 42 riders and there are no dominant teams (in shear numbers) except BVF and Kissena.  Today just might be the time to try for a breakaway. I rode in mid-field for the first few laps, just watching.  A couple modest break attempts happened but didn’t get too much ground.  I start moving up to the front and then got lucky.  With 6 to go, a Columbia University rider and Chris Shaw (Kissena) have a small lead on the field before the base of the hill.  I see a Shoji rider, Joaquin de Baca of Kissena (who just got 5th at UnionVale), and a couple others start to chase.  I follow, hard.  What started as two little break groups, merged into one at the top of the hill.  We've got about 3-400m on the field and we all start drilling it, kinda working together.  After a lap, we've got a good gap.  A little farther and the Columbia rider and Chris fall off.  It's now down to 5: John Kaminsky (Miya Shoji), Joaquin de Baca (Kissena), Mark Smith (Strictly), Ryan Kohler (unattached), and myself.  We're working a solid paceline with everyone pulling fairly equally. With 3 to go in our race, we catch the 123 field just as they are going into their prime lap.  Some of the 123's go out ahead for the prime but the rest of their field is sitting on our break!  After the prime, the motorcycle pacers sort us from one another and we leave the 123’s behind.  Two more laps to go and the 5 of us are still riding together in a solid group. On the last trip up the hill, I thought the Shoji rider or Joaquin would attack but the pace stayed reasonable.  To my eye, it looks like the sprint threat is from Mark or the Shoji youngster, John.  I don’t want to be obvious about trying to stay in the back, so I try to time my pulls and move to the rear of the group at the bottom of the final downhill. As we come into the final 1km, we congratulate one another on the day's effort, very sportsmanly.  Now we have the rare occasion to play some positioning games before starting the final sprint.  We're not really in a line but just eyeing each other across the road.  As we get closer, I lock onto the Shoji rider’s wheel and commit to the #2 spot, then Joachim, Mark, and Ryan follow.  I'm thinking about going for it with 250 or 300m to go and hope I've got the speed to hold them off.  We get to 300m and Shoji starts up his sprint and I follow, then he suddenly backs off and drops to the left.  My cover is blown and I'm now in the #1 position, not good.  It’s too late for anything else - GO!  200m to the line.  I'm looking good to about 100m then John Kaminsky (Miya Shoji), Mark Smith (Strictly), and Joaquin de Baca (Kissena) go past.  I finish #4.  Ryan Kohler was just behind me. I don’t know about the official time, but I heard we put at least 2:30, maybe 3:00, on our field and averaged 26.4mph for the race.  BVF and Kissena were doing significant blocking behind us which helped to make it happen - thanks guys.  Despite being totally knacked and somewhat botching the final sprint, it was a very good ride.  I haven’t been in a solid break like this one in almost 2 years.

Breakaway finishing sprint


Field sprint

Norm	Andrew
"no paparazzi" Dennis	Seth
Jonathan	Daniel

photos by Joel Shapiro

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