Lou Maltese Team Invitational

While bicycle racing in New York City can become slightly tedious at times -- How many times can one possibly ride in circles around Prospect or Central park? -- it does also have it's advantages. Namely, the shear number of races that you can easily ride to, and the countless photographers who turn out to shoot the races, for seemingly no reason other than pleasing the local racing community, and perhaps making a small profit. This must be a winning proposition, after all, we're all familiar with the old cycling adage: if you're not going to win, you might as well look good!

Here are some photos from Saturday's race in Central Park, courtesy of Marco Quezada, and www.nyvelocity.com. enjoy:

The field is together on lap one
You can see Foundation upping the pace
I'm on the right, white booties clearly visible

Pete lays it down as the pace goes up
The field is in single file later in the race
The average pace for this race was 27.2 miles per hour

William Lopez and Jonathan play defense
The pace was constantly fast, making it hard to move up
These two were able to hang in for placings in the top half of the field

Here I am rolling with the punches in the middle the race
I spent the first five laps neatly hidden from the wind
I popped out at exactly the right moment on the sixth lap

This breakaway formed on the sixth lap
You can see me tacked on to the back of it
I did as little work as possible

This was a very select group
At this point we were going up cat's paw
At the start of the last lap

There I am, staying out of trouble at the back
The recreational cyclists look confused
Working in that breakaway was extremely hard

Close up of the breakaway action
It's a good think I wore my fast white booties
Scott has never looked so clean!

Meanwhile, back in the field
William works to disrupt the chase
There was a small group that bridged across, but we stayed away from the group

And the sprint finish!
You can see me sprinting to stay in the top ten on the right
The field was closing in from behind

There's a tired face, after the finish
A little background info:
I only slept two hours and fifty minutes on the night before.

And that was how I spent my Saturday morning. Afterwards, I had brunch with Amanda and Eryn, who had both agreed to meet me at 10:30, and both complained how early it was. The race started at 6, and I was up at 4. You can imagine my sympathy for them!

It was a great race, and I'm proud as hell to have wound up in eighth place. It was a big deal for our team to get invited to this prestigious event, and I happy that we were able to deliver a solid result. No pictures yet from Sunday's Union Vale Road Race. We'll see if any pop up later in the week. Goodnight!