Kjellquist Blog

This past Saturday was the start of the racing season, at least here in southeastern PA. Northern Jersey is a little ahead with the Branchbrook series.
The Strasburg RR was postponed from last Saturday due to 3 – 4 inches of sleet and snow. Last weekend was a reminder that mother nature isn’t necessarily a race fan.
Jay Gaunt, Bruce Petrovik and I did the 50+ masters race. It was a little chilly (45+ degrees) on warmup but not bad with arm warmers and knickers. Roads were wet with a little bit standing water and mud in one corner. Of course, the bike looks more like it was in a cyclocross race than a road race. Didn’t hear of any crashes. I guess the hazards were so obvious everyone decided to take it easy in an early season race.
The first to get a gap was Bill Care from the ERA team. Scott Haverstick encouraged Bill to go off front. He got a reasonable gap but nobody worried since it was so early in race. Then, Joe Kenas from the Guys team went but got stuck in neverland chasing Bill. Cleve Corner from Morgan Stanley went from the back at the beginning of lap 2 with the aim of animating the pack (I heard the discussion). He caught Kenas quickly and it stayed this way for most of the lap with Joe and Cleve chasing Bill. Eventually, the three joined but it was still early so nobody really chased. But with ERA and Guys in the break and having the most riders in field, catching the break didn’t happen even though they were always in sight and never got much more than couple hundred yards. I animated the field slightly on back of lap 3, and got it half closed but that was it.
On our finish lap the cat 4’s caught us in the last 0.5 mile (start 2 min behind) making for messy setup and probably very confusing 50+ field finish.
Joe Kenas won the 3 up sprint. Jay Gaunt (MLC) won the field sprint for 4th. Bruce (18th) and I (16th) had a field finish.
Overall, I felt better in this race than last year and feels good to get the season underway. Next Saturday, Kirkwood.
 

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