Tony Laidig — Men’s Intro
I started racing to work on some things that I’m not particularly good at– being aggressive and taking calculated risks when necessary. Having been raised by recovering hippies, these were not high on the list of qualities to pass on to your children. That being said, I’m getting better at this and this last weekend was the best yet. The intro field wasn’t large, but a formidable match for me. The circuit race was a great course for technique and strength, and I got to show off both. It was exhilarating to close a sizable gap on the straightaway, uphill and into the wind, then leave two guys behind on the following climb, and spin out down the descent. Scored my first top ten finish at 6th place. Sunday was a beautiful day, if a little bit cold in the morning. The hill climb was grueling and left me missing both training on the hills of the Bay Area and my touring bike’s granny gear; maybe next year I should bring it as my HCTT bike ;). Came in 5th and actually scored an omnium point! In the crit, I got a good start and kept with the front of the pack the whole way. One thing I can work on a little more is when to apply power after a corner– I always had to sprint to close a gap after crossing the line each lap, but now I know to work on this it won’t be hard to get it right. Next weekend I’m moving (back) to D’s, not to get slaughtered again like I did at Rutgers.

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Our strong performance from Saturday’s team time trials gave us enough of a lead that even Army’s victories in its criterium and hill climb time trial on Sunday couldn’t push them into first place.

1 Massachusetts Institute of Technology – 285 pts

2 US Military Academy –  281 pts

3 University of Vermont – 216 pts

Not that MIT didn’t show up on Sunday: Tim and José both scored points on the ascent of Stony Lonesome. Laura Ralston won both the Women’s B HCTT and criterium and will be putting the hurt on the A field next weekend. Yuri Matsumoto came in an agonizing second in both the Women’s A hill climb (by less than four seconds!) and the crit.

After beating UVM on Saturday by .16 seconds MIT’s luck soured when Sunday turned into a crash-fest. Zach Ybarra, after working hard riding smart all race in the Men’s Ds, was taken out on the very last lap and will need to replace the sparkling new Rudy Project helmet he’d gotten two days before. Then somebody knocked Kenny Cheung over in the Men’s C sprint. The real carnage came in Men’s B, when three separate incidents took out four of MIT’s five, but the worst injury to body (as opposed to carbon fiber) parts fortunately only required a few stitches in Michael Hamilton’s chin, courtesy of the USMA on-post hospital.

MIT had what might politely be called an astonishingly good morning. We fielded two men’s A time trial teams of 3 men each—and to everyone’s surprise, one of the teams came in first, and the other came in third. Sandwiched between was UVM, who were beaten by sixteen hundredths of a second. Oh point one six seconds. Sadly, the third place got us no extra points, but it did bump everyone else down a notch. And the women’s A team came in first, of course. It got colder and windier as the day went on, but you wouldn’t have known. Laura took the B circuit race, and Jose came in seventh in the road race, chasing  a break that included Josh Lipka and Nick Frey more or less by himself.

More to come tomorrow, when we all get up bright dark and early for a hill climb and a criterium!