Category Archives: Track

News, Photos, Race Reports, Track

First Track Weekend Race Recap!

By Rajesh Sridhar
Fast on the heels of the road season, the first race of the joint ECCC/ACCC track season took place last week at the Valley Preferred Cycling Center in Allentown, PA. The event kicked off with an intermediate level track clinic on Saturday with Marty Nothstein, a former Olympic gold medalist and the executive director of the Valley Preferred Cycling Center. While the initial parts of the clinic dealt with talking about the various track rules and etiquette, we soon got an opportunity to practice some of the track-specific race skills such as pace lining, standing starts, wall starts as well getting comfortable with the bankings in the track. Having previously raced only on the comparatively flat Kissena track, I personally found the 28 degree banked turns to be a lot more technical and equivalently, a lot fun.
Probably due to the close proximity to the Road Nats, the race had a reasonably small attendance, with a grand total of 22 racers across all categories, collegiate and non-collegiate, women and men. MIT was represented by two Men’s C/D racers, Christian and Rajesh, making it the third largest collegiate group at the competition, after Westpoint and Yale.
Thanks to the dearth of racers in the Men’s B/C category – Christian was the only one present on the day- Men’s B/C and D categories were clubbed together and the races modified to adjust for the small number of racers. A 5-lap scratch race around the 333m track was followed by kilo (the track version of ITT over 1km) and a chariot race (a short 500m race, from a standing start).
 IMG_8227
Even though Christian missed out on winning the scratch race by a fraction of a second, he won the overall competition in the B/C/D category, after setting the fastest time in the kilo and finishing first in the chariot race. I finished 3rd in all the three races, and managed to secure the final podium position for MIT. After the main ECCC races were over, the 22 racers were grouped together into 4 teams for a fun Italian team pursuit.
We rounded off the hot sunny weekend with some delicious burritos for lunch at a nearby California themed Mexican restaurant, before starting on the dreadful 7-hour journey back home.
Alumni, Mountain, Nationals, News, Photos, Road, Track, Training

End of Summer Club Newsletter

Hello Friends of MIT Cycling!

With another academic year completed, MIT Cycling members have been out riding in force and the officer duties have passed into the hands of a new set of students. I’d like to introduce you to our newest student officers.  I’ll be taking over as Alumni Officer and I’ll do my best to keep you as up to date as Laura did!

This summer, MIT Cycling members have been extremely active in local, regional, and national communities:

You may remember from Laura’s last newsletter that in May, the Road team successfully defended their Collegiate Road National Championship title in Ogden, UT.

Later in May, we hosted an Urban Cycling Clinic spearheaded by David Koppstein (G) with our road coach Nicole Freedman, teaching the MIT community about urban cycling safety and skills.

In June, we taught the Boston community at thing or two about aerodynamics (we hope our collegiate conference competitors missed this issue of Boston Magazine!)

A large group of MIT riders headed down to the Trexlertown Valley Preferred velodrome for a Try-the-Track weekend, led by our new Track Captain Kate Wymbs (’14). [Photo 1- Track]

At the end of June, Cameron Cogburn (G) won the Mt. Hood Cycling Classic, an epic and prestigious stage race in Oregon. You can read about his awesome victory here.

Over the July 4th weekend, we took a team trip up to Kingdom Trails in VT as part of an Eastern Collegiate Cycling Conference (ECCC) mountain biking weekend. [Photo 2 -MTB]

We had a great time camping, “shredding the gnar” on the awesome singletrack, and even deep frying some Pop Tarts in bacon grease (the ultimate recovery food?!)  [Photo 3 – BaconTarts]

Many Club members took advantage of the mountain bike rental program provided by the MIT Outing Club (MITOC) and sponsored by the MIT Cycling Club.

Mid-July, MIT alum John DeTore hosted a viewing party of Stage 18 of the Tour de France—the epic double-summiting of Alpe d’Huez. (We sat and ate chips while commentating, “Oh we could totally do that…”)

On July 28th, TWO DOZEN club members dared the Climb to the Clouds, an epic local century ride that includes a summit of Mt. Wachusett! [Photo 4 – Clouds]

After a successful mountain biking weekend in VT, several Club members took on some ENDURANCE MOUNTAIN BIKE races!

  • Ben Eck (’15) and Luke Plummer (’14) raced a 2-man team at the 12 Hours of Millstone mountain bike race in Millstone, VT, finishing in 6th place! (Luke even rode an “extra large” 36”-wheel rigid bike!) [Photo 5 – Millstone
  • Yours truly Chris Birch (G) and Andrew Lysaght (G) headed to the State College, PA, area for the National Ultra Endurance series race Wilderness 101—a century MTB race consisting of 30 minute gravel climbs and 8 minute fall-line descents!

What’s next for the collegiate team?

Mountain bike season is about to begin, followed closely by the collegiate track! The conference calendar is here, showing upcoming races.

From those of us here in Cambridge and our club members abroad for the summer, we hope you’re enjoying some good riding wherever this update finds you.

See you on the road/dirt/track!
–Chris

Want to be included in the Friends of MIT Cycling newsletter?
Send an email update (photos encouraged!) to alumni officer Chris Birch at birch@mit.edu.
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Nationals, Race Reports, Track

It may be hot in Texas, but it’s always 44.6° at the Superdrome

Edrie Ortega, Kate Wymbs, Chris Birch, Zach LaBry, Mike Garrett, Zach Hartwig, and Spencer Schaber show off their Stars and Bars on the Superdrome's 44.6° banking.

by Chris Birch

Seven MIT Cycling members descended on the 45-degree banked 250-meter wooden velodrome in Frisco, TX, for the USA Cycling Collegiate Track National Championships on September 20 through 22. Their mission? Gold medals, Stars and Bars jerseys, and the hotly contested DII National Championship title.

Track cycling is one of the most dynamic disciplines of cycling with events that challenge athletes not only to overpower their opponents, but also to outwit them. Cyclists ride counter-clockwise on fixed gear bicycles without brakes on a 250m or 333m oval “track” or “velodrome” with banking up to 55 degrees.

“Apart from racing, just riding on the track is flat-out fun!” says Spencer Daniel Schaber G. “The 45 degree banking is daunting at first because you have to ride 17 mph just to stay on it, but after getting the hang of it, it’s like a roller coaster.”

Katherine A. Wymbs ‘14 was pure enthusiasm at the event: “Nothing quite compares to diving into the sprinter’s lane from high on the banking like a lightning bolt into the Flying 200 [meter time trial] and maintaining speed around the [final] turns!”

The Collegiate Track National Championships consists of seven events across three days: some events are performed solo (long and short individual time trials called “pursuits,” and matched sprints), some raced as a team (team pursuits and the co-ed sprint), and some against all other athletes simultaneously (points race and scratch race).

With a record turnout of 120 riders, the MIT team had to rely on each other to ensure teammates were ready for their races. Schaber says he “repeatedly swapped aerodynamic wheels and handlebars, changing chain rings and cogs to get the optimal gear ratio for each event.”

Notably, Christina Marie Birch G clocked 4:03 for a 3-kilometer individual pursuit, earning a fourth place medal. Michael Lane Garrett G earned 7th in the Flying 200-meter time trial by completing his sprint in under 12 seconds. Zachary A. LaBry G and Garrett placed 8th and 10th respectively in the men’s 4-kilometer individual pursuit, only a second apart with times of 4:58 and 4:59.

The men's team pursuit of Mike Garrett, Spencer Schaber, Zach LaBry, and Zach Hartwig on track.

The women’s team, comprised of Birch and first-year track cyclists Wymbs and Edrie Buenaventura Ortega G, finished the 3-kilometer team pursuit first among teams fielding only 3 out of 4 possible riders. The men’s team included Garrett, LaBry, Schaber, and Zachary Seth Hartwig G, and finished 10th in the men’s 4-kilometer version of the event.

Each day the team arrived at the track before sunrise, warmed up under stadium lights, raced until 3 p.m. in increasingly hot conditions, only occasionally with a 1-2 hour break for lunch and air conditioning, and then returned to the track at 5:00 p.m. for racing well past nightfall. Wymbs confessed MIT’s secret for success: “I think that one of the reasons MIT did so well as a team was that we have more experience than other teams at operating on less than eight hours of sleep.”

Garrett, by far the most experienced track cyclist of the troupe, noted that camaraderie was at the heart of the MIT victory. “It was great to have seven riders who gave each race 100% and then spent the rest of the time supporting their teammates — truly an MIT team effort.”

USA Cycling will remember MIT’s gold-winning performance on the track as well as Ortega’s breathtaking rendition of the National Anthem on the final day of competition. Ortega is a newcomer to track cycling but already understands many of its nuances: “It takes more than having the strongest riders to win. It takes patience, control, and awareness to take the gold.”

The MIT Cycling Team’s victory would not have been possible without the generous support of the MIT Club Sports Council and sponsorship by FXDD, Thoughtforms Corporation, Schlumberger, The Branta Group, and Exponent.

The 2012 MIT Track Nationals team bring home the gold at the end of a hard-fought competition in Frisco, TX.
News, Race Reports, Track

Stars and Stripes at Track Nats 2010

Chalk it up: MIT Cycling has another set of Stars and Stripes jerseys to add to the collection after an intense weekend of racing at Collegiate Track Nationals in Indianapolis. Big props to our other DII podium teams, DePauw and Army.

The full story goes something like this, and by “something”, I mean “stick with me, it’s been nearly two weeks and I might be forgetting details”:

Day N-2

The car gets loaded with bikes, rollers, and Mike’s enormous bag of race gear. It’s unclear how many small children are being smuggled across multiple state borders inside that bag, but it is clear the minimum number is two. Everything arrives in Ohio eleven hours later without incident. Connecticut wins for best highway patrol cars. Nothing is said about how the car got to Ohio in the off-chance that Nick’s advisor finds this blog.

Day N-1

After a breakfast involving a patented mix of ciabatta, avocados, cheese, and fried eggs, the gear arrives at the Major Taylor velodrome in Indianapolis after another couple hours of driving. The first Josh Schwartz sighting is made. The rest of the team arrives at the airport amidst Nick’s confusion about which garage level the car is parked and gets a subsequent tour of the facility. (Cake would have been dismayed to find their lyrics misused.) Laura is concerned that the boys in the backseat are eating all “her” food.

Day 1

Pursuits and pursuits! The morning session was the (long-for-the-track but the roadies are going to make fun of us) Women’s 3K and Men’s 4K pursuits. Laura wound it up and used her well-practiced bob-and-weave technique to push through to the finish in a solid 10th place finish. Zach stomped Nick’s time in the 4K, then both watched as they subsequently had their time squished like June bugs under a tractor by the pros — including Mike, who made all the early competitors look like they were out for a Sunday cruise, pulling in laps that were several seconds faster than the majority despite the high winds buffeting the oval. We also learned that it’s illegal to overtake someone who previously passed you during a pursuit, which could lead to some dastardly tactics. For fans of numbers, Mike was 1.54-sigma faster than the mean (assuming Gaussianity) with his 4th place finish, while Nick was 1.60-sigma slower; the event winner was 2.38-sigma faster (Figure 1). Zach conveniently defined the mean time.

Kilos in the afternoon followed a similar trend, this time with Nick edging out Zach (who decided to ride the first quarter lap with one foot unclipped to demonstrate what a false start should have looked like) before the pros stomped down some amazingly fast spins. Mike, of course, had enough speed to get into the top 20. Laura’s 500m pursuit, loaded with more aero than Chewie at a Zipp convention, was just a fraction of a second out of the points. Oh, and for those who are curious, the density estimate of kilo times is plotted below, showing a much stronger skew to the low times than seen in the pursuit times. Interesting. Since it was Laura’s birthday, we made a run for the high-quality craft beverages to go with a pizza dinner — and came across the “Angry Beaver” bar in downtown Indianapolis. Judging by smoke and music, it was not run by an ex-MIT student, though possibly an ex-hipster-lumberjack.

Day 2

The morning session was straight-forward: sprint qualifiers for Attack and the Loominator. The short end of the story is that we both had loads of extra time after the qualifiers to go get bagels and coffee in downtown Indianapolis. Yep, stomped. Severely. Including a stomping by Josh Schwartz, one of the top qualifiers. The bagels were good, though, including a cinnamon sugar that emulsified itself to the top of the bagel.

Back at the hotel, Laura was wingeing that “Mike should really put on some trousers,” and had taken to working down in the lobby while waiting for Mike to figure out what trousers translated to in real English.

The afternoon session was the team sprint and women’s points race. The team sprint featured Laura leading off the first two laps (because no other women from MIT were brave enough to ride track and help her out, ahem ahem), followed by some quick laps from Nick and Zach before Mike ITT’d the final two laps to finish just a touch faster than our other DII competition. Laura then turned right around and rode a 20K points race, going out a couple times on flyers and chasing intelligently. The field stayed together for the most part, so that Laura’s finishing sprint paid off.

Day 3

More racing: the morning session featured the men’s team pursuit, where Nick and Zach basically held on for dear life behind the draft that is Mike Garrett. After attempting a set of rotations, Mike would start pulling away, then we’d regroup, and he would take another lap in the lead… so that the pursuit was actually a relaxed ITT for Mike with a couple additional wheelsuckers. Again, it was enough to gain some points on our DII competition, and was within just seconds of several other teams. (Third and eleventh place were separated by 4.55 seconds. That’s a tight distribution.) Jokes about Chewie’s infamous “JOSE! GAP! GAP!” remained rampant throughout the day.

Mike easily qualified for the points race by looking so much like a pro during the cycling clothing fashion show, and also by lapping the field during the prelims. During the real points race, he went out with just the right groups, and after spending something like a third of the race hanging out half a lap ahead of the field finally managed to lap them and get his points. Other groups attempting to lap the field, with or without Mike, weren’t as successful. (Side note: I was reminded that my Track Theme Song is still appropriate.)

Before all the dust settled, MIT had enough points to win the Div II Team Omnium. Fortunately for us, our small team had just enough space to crowd on to the winners podium nestled between large amounts of yellow from De Pauw and Army. There was more craft beverages back in downtown Indianapolis (a Ram Assface for both myself and Zach, which seemed appropriate after our team pursuit) and all of us getting compared to the intelligent folk from Butler University. “Am I right?”

Day M+1:M+2

From here on out, everything is pretty uneventful: the guys got dropped at the airport, the car started its journey back towards Massachusetts, etc, etc. There’s a great bike path between Stow and Cleveland, OH, that passes right through the Cayahoga Forest. I found out my sister doesn’t like zombie movies or fluorescently-colored shirts. I rediscovered a love for Twizzlers. And all the equipment arrived back safe with only a few nominal road bumps — ready for dishing track pain again next year.

Race Reports, Track

ECCC Track Dose Dos: Kissena

Kissena hosted the second set of ECCC track racces this year in conjunction with the NY State Championships this last weekend in August. MIT arrived with the brave and early crowd amidst the last bits of Tropical Storm Danny. Mike remembered why he disliked city driving, we got sandwhiches at a deli which offered cattering (sic), and told Alan Atwood to hold his line with the leaf blower he was using to dry the track surface. It was a smaller crowd, both collegiate and New Yorkers, by the time racing started. Props to the Columbia women and Nick B from Princeton for showing up despite the earlier storm.

Kilos were fairly standard, with all of us struggling to hold on despite the extreme bumpiness of the Kissena track. (I’m convinced it doubles as a BMX track.) Mike and Chewie each won their categories. Mike got some good racing against Nick B in the points race, stomping down enough sprints to take the win. The Collegiate B’s was an MIT internal affair, with Zach, Chewie, Tim and myself as the only competitors. Chewie accumulated enough points for the win, I think I took second with “ZS” points (apparently Alan Atwood’s slang for “nine”, according to the results sheet), and enduro Zach and Tim rounded it out with enough points of their own.

On Day 2, the weather was fantastic, mid seventies with sun, which was good enough for Army to be Army Strong and show their faces. The inital round of matched sprints pitted MIT and Army together: Zach versus three Armies, Nick versus two Armies, and Chewie and Tim versus at least one Army. The short of it was that MIT won each match up. Mike ladled out more sprint than his Army racer could handle and won his category of matched sprints right away. The second round saw MIT beating Army hands-down again, making the final a three-up MIT sprint. Enduro Zach attacked right from the start, forcing Chewie and I to sprint to catch him and hang on for dear life. Coming around the backside of the final lap, I asked Zach where Chewie was as I sprinted around. I confused his “gone” with “go on” and put in extra steam thinking Chewie was nipping my wheel… finding out later that Chewie was taking it easier after all his racing during the day.

The scratch race was pretty straight forward. Army tried attacking from the gun, but found themselves instantly covered by MIT. There was an initial group that got up the road a bit, then got reeled in. Zach, Chewie, Tim, and an Army rider formed a second group and I blocked (note to self: scratch races aren’t supposed to be team events, so I shouldn’t have been blocking, whoops) and they stayed away to take the win. Mike’s scratch race was more like an extremely long pursuit. He and two other riders went to bridge to a strong rider who had gotten away, but only Mike was able to maintain the blazing pace, leaving himself riding in no man’s land for the rest of the race and a well-earned 2nd in the Cat 123 field.

The MIT team sprint was a good pace, qualifying us for elite nationals. Huh. The team pursuit was a good chance for the men to practice technique. Amy went home early, so while it was a good time, the win was a default.

At the end of two days, MIT topped the collegiate competition again. More importantly, we all got great practice racing track, and both Tim and Chewie (the relative “newbies”) said they had fun… and wished they’d gotten track bikes sooner. Next up for MIT: Track Nationals at T-Town in three weeks. Given what I saw this weekend, it should be another great experience at Nats for the Engineers.

Race Reports, Track

Results of this weekend’s racing at Kissena

Email from Zach LaBry:

Although MIT were the only ones on Saturday to race (aside from the illustrious Nick Bennette) in the men’s collegiate section, Army showed up today for the match sprints, scratch racing, and team sprints (and bailed on the team pursuit). It would be fair to say that in the men’s A (of which we had one and they had one), Mike gave them a solid pounding. It would also be fair to say that in the men’s B (us four, them five), we totally and utterly crushed them. While the first of the collegiate match sprints saw me take the lead in a four up against 3 Army rides, alas the finale came down to a three up between me, Nick Loomis and Chewie (I did my best to shake those two off, but Loomis has a mean sprint). The scratch race was similarly a 1, 2, 3 sweep for MIT. And they were similarly demolished in the team sprint.

Yeah, the MIT Cycing team is that badass.

Race Reports, Track

NEV Championship Weekend

MIT was up at the New England Velodrome this past weekend for the New Hampshire track championships and regional nationals qualifiers: two days of racing everything that could get you a medal at elite nationals. Tony Eberhart, the man behind the concrete oval curtain, even added in extra Cat 4 racing for us lowly non-elite riders. And, just to make it bike-crazy at the NEV park, the BMX track opened up this weekend with a full crowd of racers, spectators, and grill-for-hire.

El primer dia, the main set of races were all pursuits: 500m/3K or 1K/4K. The women all had good runs, with Yuri winning the 500m and everyone doing well in the 3K. Zach learned that he had too low of gearing on his rental track bike somewhere around the point that the tunnel vision started setting in during his 1K, which thankfully got corrected before his 4K run… which we’re guessing for times on, as the sun addled the brains of the officials. I remembered how much I didn’t like long pursuits. A points race closed out the day; Laura took off and lapped the field with teammates Martha and Yuri helping to control the pace and block the other riders. In the Cat 4’s, I took off on the second lap, hoping that the rest of the field (all pursuit guys) would realize it was a stupid move and wait to chase, giving me a small chance at getting a few points before being put out of contention. Nope. No such luck. Zach did a good job of staying on UVM Tristan’s wheel and followed him through the rest of the race.

Day two was sprints, mostly. Team sprints showcased the multi-age skill of the GOGUEN! family, forming two different teams which each tromped the other groups. Flying 200’s to seed the sprint tournament showed that we had several groupings that were, to within the clock’s uncertainty, equal competitors. (I turned white under my sunburn when I found out that Tristan, Manny GOGUEN! and I all had 200 times within 0.20 seconds of each other, and I was already scared of them from the previous day.) Unfortunatley, due to the smaller number of riders and the age-group divisions (ie, nationals qualifiers), most of the matched sprints were reduced to single shot, three-up races. In the women’s race, Laura tried going early to take advantage of her pursuit power, but sprinter Kim saw her winding up and grabbed the opportunity and took the win two laps later. My three-up with Tristan and Manny was a mixed bag of racing, starting with a fairly neutral lap and a second lap of meandering, with Manny going to a track stand at the top of the track during the fourth turn. (Tristan drifted just ahead of us, but I wasn’t about to give in to GOGUEN! on a track stand.) The kid finally took off, but he was “easy enough” to catch and tuck in, then match on the back stretch and just barely edge out at the line. The final race of the day was a scratch with combined Women’s and Cat 4 fields. I lead the first several laps, shutting Tristan out of the sprinter’s lane and picking up the pace each time I felt an attack coming from over the outside… except that it was teammate Laura doing the attacking. Oops. (Side note: human peripheral vision does not have color sensitivity.) The race finally blew apart with the pursuiters heading up the track and me failing to block in super-competitive Kim to help Laura. In the end, we all crossed the finish line safely, tired, and having learned something about track racing.

The next big race is two weeks from now, the second ECCC track weekend, hosted by the Kissena Velodrome in New York City. Now’s a good time to get your track bike in working order so that MIT can kick serious cogs down in Queens.

Race Reports, Track

Nittany Cup: ECCC Track is back, baby!

This weekend marked the return of Track Season, and specifically, the second collegiate track season in the history of US cycling.  (Did I mention that the ECCC is the only conference with enough cogs to even consider a track season?)

Matt, Mike and I took a road trip down to T-Town for the opener, braving several hours of driving and traffic to get Mike there in time for the Pro races on Friday night. (Mike even sweet talked his way out of a toll.) It was pretty awesome to see a teammate competing with the likes of Giddeon Massie, Olympians, Worlds Champs, the New Zealand national team, and up-and-comers in the sport.  Our section of the bleachers held a special place in their heart for number 113, though, when they figured out who we were yelling obnoxiously for to lap the field.

Saturday was the collegiate competition, Matt’s first time on a track with a bank greater than 14 degrees, and my first time at T-Town since getting my nickname. It definitely did not fail to impress, especially for those of us Boston Hicks who quake at any hill greater than 2%.  Mike managed to pull out a flying-200 time a bit over 11 seconds, second only to the sprinter dude from Penn State whose name I just forgot.  The Kilo right afterwards was also a big win for Mike, who opted for the “fast and aero” approach, while Matt and I went for the “make it look painful and may Thor have mercy on our chains” approach.  (I managed to both cross the finish line and snag fifth.)  Matt and Mike, the endurance guys, both looked like they were having fun during the points race, with Matt using his new pursuit-ing skills to work with Greg Wasolowich (I swear, they must have had his name wrong on the sign-in, the announcer never got it right once) to maintain some ridiculous speed while Mike toyed with the scary fast guys for sprint points — accumulating enough to win the race.  I enjoyed watching from my vantage point somewhere just behind Sprinter Dude’s disheartened arse, which Mike graciously handed to him during the first points sprint. At the end, us three MIT’s rode a 4K team pursuit, which was a good show of teamwork and cottonmouth, and 2nd place points for the team.

Interspersed throughout the day, Mike also had to compete in the matched sprints, which the kid kept winning, thus ensuring that his legs would be completely toasted.  He made it to the final round against Sprinter Dude, who had competed the previous night against the Pros, and apparently had an infinite amount of pain he could sustain for exactly 2.01 laps.  I’m proud to say that Mike gave him a serious run for it, jumping fast and hanging on for a close second.

In all, the weekend in Pennsylvania was great: track, races, chilling, and Matt learning pretty much everything to know about track racing and riding rollers in less than 30 hours.

If you had come along, you could have also laughed at Matt’s ice cream headaches (all three), eaten Pepe’s white clam pizza with birch beer as recommended by Mike, and navigated better than Google.  Which means y’all should be doing a lot more track in the next couple weeks — and coming to Kissena for the next round of ECCC track.  Yes?  Yes.  Period.

Race Reports, Track

Saturday Track Sprints at NEV

Thanks to help from Zach and Alex, who went on to race the Concord Crit, I managed to get up to the NEV to get some track back into my blood with their matched sprint tourney.  It was a small but highly determined (and speedy!) group of racers with some close rides and odd-ball three-ups in the early sessions.  In the final round, I went best-of-three with the US Hour Record holder (Men’s 50-54), Mike Pavlov, who was visiting NEV. In the first round, I took the obligation to lead the first lap, and attempted to slow Mike down to a reasonable speed by setting my bars in front of his and pushing him up to the wall… which Mike didn’t seem to notice. A true competitor, Mike held his line solidly and pushing back.  I got him at the end, though I’m not entirely sure how.  In the second round, Mike took the obligation and immediately took the speed up to his time trial spin. He dodged uptrack with 250m to go and I pulled under, with enough advantage to finish the race with a dodgy spin “around” the sprinter’s lane.  Either way, we were both tired, but hopefully managed to give the spectators a good finish to the day’s racing.  A big thanks to the New England Velodrome, Tony Eberhart, Mike Pavlov, and the rest of the Saturday racers.