Anthony Wins Ninigret Criterium, Charlestown RI, April 12th

Saturday dawned cold and rainy - not the best motivation to go out and race, but I had convinced myself that I would try to be aggressive this weekend and be a factor in the races. This Thursday I was able to get in my longest ride of the season so far - a solid 6 hours of tempo riding, and although that left me a bit sore, I was psyched to get some good New England racing in. Mike Dietrich and I were the sole Fiordifrutta/Wheelworks
representatives at Ninigret, and our plan was to take advantage of the tough windy conditions and open course, and make the pace hard from the gun. Since the race was only slightly longer than an hour, we felt this would be feasable.

By the time we raced, the rain had let up, but it was still quite overcast and chilly, with a stiff wind that promised to make things interesting. There were about 30 riders in the Pro/1/2 field, and sure enough, it was strung out from the word "go." After giving my legs a few laps to warm up, I started attacking as hard and often as I could. At first, every move I made was chased down, but luckily the wind made it hard to sit in, and riders began getting tired. About a third of the way through the race, perennial powerhouse (and Ninigret race promoter) Randy Rusk (Arc-En-Ciel) attacked solo and got a bit of a gap. I waited a minute or two and then jumped hard in pursuit. I was able to bridge up fairly quickly, and brought with me Randy's teammate Todd Buckley and a NCC rider. We worked together for a few laps before being joined by Conor Hurley (West Virginia Pro Cycling).

Mike D was doing a fantastic job of slowing down the chase in the field behind, which helped us gain some precious time. For the next half-hour or so, the laps ticked by slowly as we shared the nasty work of fighting the brutal winds that faced us, just barely keeping a 30-second gap alive. About midway a $20 prime was announced, and Conor sprinted for it. I tried to come around him but couldn't, and we found ourselves with a small gap. Randy and Todd clawed their way back up to us, but the NCC rider was unable to re-attach, and soon found himself back in the field.

The remainder of the race passed rather uneventfully, until with 2 to go, Todd got a slow puncture. He was able to hang on to the back of the break to get 4th, but could not contest the sprint. This left Randy, Conor, and myself to battle it out.

As it happened, I was leading coming around the last gradual left-hand bend, and Conor and Randy didn't want to pull through, so I had to decide how I wanted to start the sprint. I had a few options, but I knew that my sprint is all in the jump, so my best chance was to slow it down and then make a quick burst for the line. I kept to the far right of the road and watched the other two, while I gradually slowed down to a crawl. The line approached. When I could see that Randy and Conor were getting ready to start the sprint themselves, I jumped as hard as I could in the 53x19. Shift, shift, shift, shift, head down, just like a town line sprint on a group ride... When I could see that neither of them were going to come around me, I could barely believe it, because my legs had been screaming at me the entire race! Apparently, though, so were the legs of many other riders, judging by the numbers in the thinned-out field that crossed the line soon afterwards. Mike came across 10th, after policing the field for me the whole time, and between the two of us we came away with some good extra spending money. And, I won my first road race in quite some time! =) Training pays!