Attleboro Criterium - Cat 4

Made a last minute decision to race at Attleboro. By last minute, I mean my cat 4 race started at 3:45PM, and at 1PM the day of, I was sitting around eating lunch in Lexington considering not racing because I didn’t feel well. The previous week was a rest week, and I was pretty certain that I would have good legs so it seemed like a waste not to race. I popped a few Advil and arrived in Attleboro at around 3 PM.

Once I got on the road I realized that I didn’t really know where I was going, other than that the race was just a block or two west of Attleboro center. I ended up parking in some totally random place with a handful of other racers. This is worth mentioning because my only warmup ended up being a casual ride to and from the start/finish line.

The course is a short, 1 km track with relatively tight corners and minimal elevation change. It’s about a 200m flat straight to the finish. A brief downhill back straight leads into two successive turns before the finish. The high speed from the downhill and a little bit of uneven pavement made these turns a more technical than most.

As usual I was late to lineup due to a last-minute pit stop, so I took my place at the back. Given my lack of warmup, I did not have any aspirations to go for an early break so sitting in for the first few laps was the plan anyways. The first few laps seemed pretty tame which was good for my warmup, but during that time a significant break of maybe eight riders or so went up the road. It contained two Quad Cycles (QC) guys, but I couldn’t tell if it contained a Cambridge Bicycles (CB) rider. CB had several racers in the field and normally are very proactive in controlling cat 4 races, but I didn’t think they seemed too concerned about the break so maybe they were represented.

After about 10 minutes of being away the break had created a gap of something like 20 seconds and I was starting to get nervous about it sticking. I moved towards the front and was thinking about trying to bridge when three riders on the tail end of the break crashed coming out of turn 2. So with three racers crashing out of the break and another racer dropping back, the break was down to four.

The break had been away for 15 or 20 minutes and the bell rang for a field prime. This helped speed things up a bit. After the prime, Bernie Tan (NEBC) went to the front and buried himself for a little bit, stringing out the field good. I had done next to nothing at this point and felt good, so I took my turn at the front. Initially three of us pulled off of the front and rotated for 5 or 10 minutes, trying to bridge the gap. Before long the pelican woke up and joined us, adding to our horsepower as we chased down the break. Eventually 3 people in the break gave up with the last keeping the hammer down still well off the front.

The last racer of the break stayed off of the front solo for an impressively long time. I’m not sure who it was, maybe an unattached rider in a yellow jersey. A few people organized to keep the pace up and after several laps we did bring him back with around six to go. The pelican ate up all that tried to escape.

Once the last man standing from the break was brought back, there was a lot of shuffling and jockeying for position. The course seemed to suit me well, and I was able to maintain my spot about 10 or 20 guys deep with what felt like minimal effort. My heart rate was running high, well into the 170’s, yet my legs felt fresh and perceived effort was minimal.

With two to go the swarming kicked into high gear, and there may have been a break attempt or two off the front. The breaks didn’t really matter at this point as we were flying at over 28 mph average. The turns kept the swarming in check, and I was able to consistently move up by cornering fast and accelerating early out of turns.

As we crossed the line for the final lap I was around 15^th wheel, and a strong racer attacked off the front going into the slight hill. There was a strong reaction at the front of the pelican, but the attack was successful in getting a gap. We moved up the first hill and around turn one at a good pace. Coming out of turn 1 the wheel in front of me let a gap open and I came around him to the outside. I was nervous going into turn 2 but was happy to be positioned on the inside where it was safer. The pace picked up as we came down the hill, but I attacked early coming out of the turn and moved up all the way to fourth wheel in the single-file line. The rider that attacked at the line was still off the front by 20 or 30 meters.

We went over the bump and around turn 3 at a high speed. Shortly after making the turn, the lead rider pulled off the front to the left, meaning I was now third in line. As we approached the final turn before the finishing straight, the rider now on the front seemed to ease up just a bit, and lined up to take the final turn surprisingly wide. Seeing the opportunity, I attacked hard to the inside and passed the two people in front of me just before the turn. I took the bumpy line on the inside of the corner at a high speed without any braking, and hammered out of the saddle down the left side of the road. I overtook the solobreak rider just after the turn and never looked back, crossing the line in first place. Victory!

Overall the race felt easy relative to some of the more recent races I’ve done (i.e. Longsjo, Twilight Crit, Heartbreak Hill). Normalized power was only 90% of what it was in most of those races, and I did more work fighting the wind than usual. Sitting in the pelican was very restful, and this left me with good legs for the finish. My finishing effort was better than most have been recently, and I was actually able to sprint at over 1,000W on a finishing lap for once. The timing of my attack is probably what got me the win though.