Doing the Habitat for Humanity circuit race in East Norriton this sunday. I did this race last year. 10 x 2.25 mile loop. There are 2 hard turns, 1 that is extremely narrow. Also, There is a long climb that leads to the uphill finish.
I took 10th out of 51 starters. It was a great result for me. Here are a couple pix and how things went:
Here we go. Above is pretty early on. Thats me sitting 4th wheel. I did that for a few laps then moved back. That guy leading the charge? He took the easier of the two turns a little bit too hot about halfway through the race. He went into the ditch. Later in the day, Steph pointed out that this ditch was lined with poison ivy. If you are planning on doing the race, don’t fall into the ditch with the poison ivy. Ill advised.
See how we’re all bunched up? This pic here must have been from lap 8 or 9. The results say that at least 12 people didn’t finish so our pace was good enough to pop folks off the back. No one really went up the road though. That would be standard operating procedure for pretty much every cat 5 race I did last year.
The interesting thing about this course is the harder of the two turns. The harder of the two turns is so for two reasons: #1 is that its pretty much a 90 degree angle. #2 is that its a bridge that barely accommodates 2 riders wide.
Its hairy.
Ironically, there were no crashes at this point in the race. Meanwhile, from laps 4-7, this turn effectively cut the field in half. People would slow down, take the turn conservatively. Then scurry and scamper hard to get back to the lead group. After being in this group for a lap or two, I realized that being in the back group was not cause for alarm. Someone else could get alarmed. And that was the person whose wheel I would sit on. It worked out pretty well as a strategy.
Ah and here is the conclusion. The rider from World Ski and Snow is stealing the victory from the Boston Scientific rider and Chris Pagoda. Who clearly thought he had it. between 4 and 5 seconds later, I crossed the line, outsprinted by the guy on the right from Mainline.
That’s racing.
We’ll see how it goes this year. Stephanie and the boy will be coming out to watch again this year. Which truth be told, was the nicest part of the race last year.
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