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04-03-04, 05:24 PM
Ah dear, the Beanpot, Boston's only college crit. For those who don't know, it is a .6 mile course, comprising of 6 90 degree turns, 3 of which come after downhills. It is politely regarded as technical. Wet, it can be considered hellacious.
The day started at 8 with the UCSF 4/5s. Happily I was racing collegiate B's but that still doesn't mean I was spared from witnessing the carnage. To put it simply, the race averaged a crash every two laps (acutally a little more), every possible squirrely thing you could witness happened...people not holding lines, people breaking too hard, not enough, bumping, not realizing where the curb was, hitting the watered-slicked road paint, hitting man hole covers (the latter two not really squirrely but ouch anyways. Of the top 10 finishers. not a one was without evidence of an unwanted ground/flesh interaction.
Happily I missed the womens race (needed food and didn't want to see more crashes, though apparently they had a safer race). The Pro/1/2/3 race went slightly better as the course was dry-there was only about 7-10 crashes in 45 laps-as the winner said afterwards "I should've crashed, I'm just not sure where".
The colligeate races started smoothly, the Men's D experienced a near dry course, and I only saw a few guys running to the repair tent and only a few of those showing any kind of road carnage. Men's C, went decently-a buddy of mine raced it, and finished saying "I only saw about a half dozen crashes" (it was a 25 lap race...). Women's B appeared to go smoothly as well (after today I really think women are the smarter sex).
For my race, Men's B, things went to hell. It was about a 50 to 60 man field (though when your in it always seems bigger so I could be wrong), and as we rolled up it started to sprinkle-not rain but as the race showed, it was much more than enough. The course begins on a flat that hits the first turn after about 50 meters, and the squeal of breaks became audible immideately, happily though no one actually crashed (one or two did manage to hit the curb). By this point I had managed to screw myself thoroughly getting stuck in the back third of the pack (though I thought it wouldn't be a big deal-mistake). The second turn was the killer. 200 meters of decent grade downhill into a 90 degree left, complete with manhole cover and a painted cross walk, all of which were thoroughly slicked, as we quickly discovered. On the downhill I tried to make my way forward, unfortunately I was already paying for my position-a guy in the top third of the pack wiped out (a UVM rider I think) and took out a UNH rider (they had an unlucky day). This created the first split as a group got around them smoothly while the back third grabbed their brakes opening up about a 50 to 100 meter gap. 100-200 meters later the next turn-another left, this time into an uphill occured, and the pack disintegrated into a scattered line as some guys pedaled through the turn, some guys rolled, some braked, and another crashed. I was in the pedaling category so I hopped out, whipped into the right turn and promptly had my back end swing out an extra foot as I rode over the slicked man hole cover-I stayed upright, but dear god my heart was in my throat. This turn led into a slight downhill for about 100 meters, and quickly cut left into the second most god-forsaken turn of the race. Normally it wouldn't have been a big deal, a 90 degree turn with a decent amount of space, however to make things interesting this turn was covered in orange warning paint to show you all the holes in the road (a guy had taco'd his wheel in one in the C race). Thus as you took the turn it was nearly inevidable you'd hit a bump, and all you could do was pray your wheel came down in time so you could make the turn. This brought you into the only significant uphill portion, where happily I could pass guys pretty easily on. Somehow though the turn after the uphill always caused people to slow down, and worse they wouldn't hold their line. Bounce over a few cobbles and lap one is done...29 more.
By lap two, I was simply trying to find a group of riders who looked to have a clue (you'd think in the B race it would be easier...hah), things went well in this lap accept for the third turn where all I heard behind was the "crack-grinnnnnndddddd-crack" of a bike and rider hitting pavement and slidding to the curb, he was cleared up by the next lap. Things went mediocerely into lap 5 where I realized I was farther back than I should've been and that the group I was riding with couldn't hold their speed in a turn (and proved it when the lead kid locked his rear wheel going into the big turn-he kissed the hay bale). Thus I had to break, which would've been cool accept the next group was 200 meters up-so away I went cutting the turns as hard as I could, with little to no braking, and made it up, by the end of lap 5.
At this point I was way too close to blowing up so I sat on the back drafting, again realizing I was still too far back. On lap 6 I wittnessed the nastiest crash of the day. Turning into the uphill, a kid from BU or MIT (maybe Harvard...they're all in red) hit a bump and wheelied. To his credit he stayed up, unfortunately he couldn't turn with just his rear wheel and went straight into the curb where either his chainwheel or rear wheel hit the curb and surmsaulted him face first into the pavement. This happened in about a second. He was still on the ground in lap 7.
By lap 8, I was attacking again by now desperate to get out of the back group, though by then my body had finally warmed up to attacking and I wasn't blowing up. Unfortunately it turned out that it wouldn't matter. By lap 11, 2 break aways, a solo lead, and a 2 man chase had extended more than half a lap off the lead pack (the solo guy was close to three quarters up) and was being lead by the officials car who whistled my entire group off the road. Of course the carnage wouldn't stop, as I sat on the rode fuming at myself for letting myself get dropped early I wittness 4 riders, 3 UNH and a UVM domino on the downhill turn, each locking his rear wheel, losing it, and the sliding to the curb-though the UVM kid who managed to run over the last UNH rider and then summersault over his bars instead. All four of them had to be carried away.
Having exhausted my knowledge of 4 letter words, my buddy and I trekked back up to the finish line and our stuff. The race ended up being cut down to about 20 riders, the lead soloist who lapped the chase pack, the second break (who ended up becoming a solo after a rider kissed hay on the downhill) and the lapped chase group whom they didn't pull but made them finish a lap early with the lead soloist, my consolation was my other teamate placing 4th.
This was the craziest race I have ever witnessed in my short time as a rider, while I've only been racing for 7 months I saw more stupid handling than I ever thought possible (think cat 5), especially in a collegiate B race (its compared to Cat 3), that combined with the degree of technicality and the weather leads me to dub the Boston Beanpot Crit the sketchiest crit ever*
*In my limited experience
The day started at 8 with the UCSF 4/5s. Happily I was racing collegiate B's but that still doesn't mean I was spared from witnessing the carnage. To put it simply, the race averaged a crash every two laps (acutally a little more), every possible squirrely thing you could witness happened...people not holding lines, people breaking too hard, not enough, bumping, not realizing where the curb was, hitting the watered-slicked road paint, hitting man hole covers (the latter two not really squirrely but ouch anyways. Of the top 10 finishers. not a one was without evidence of an unwanted ground/flesh interaction.
Happily I missed the womens race (needed food and didn't want to see more crashes, though apparently they had a safer race). The Pro/1/2/3 race went slightly better as the course was dry-there was only about 7-10 crashes in 45 laps-as the winner said afterwards "I should've crashed, I'm just not sure where".
The colligeate races started smoothly, the Men's D experienced a near dry course, and I only saw a few guys running to the repair tent and only a few of those showing any kind of road carnage. Men's C, went decently-a buddy of mine raced it, and finished saying "I only saw about a half dozen crashes" (it was a 25 lap race...). Women's B appeared to go smoothly as well (after today I really think women are the smarter sex).
For my race, Men's B, things went to hell. It was about a 50 to 60 man field (though when your in it always seems bigger so I could be wrong), and as we rolled up it started to sprinkle-not rain but as the race showed, it was much more than enough. The course begins on a flat that hits the first turn after about 50 meters, and the squeal of breaks became audible immideately, happily though no one actually crashed (one or two did manage to hit the curb). By this point I had managed to screw myself thoroughly getting stuck in the back third of the pack (though I thought it wouldn't be a big deal-mistake). The second turn was the killer. 200 meters of decent grade downhill into a 90 degree left, complete with manhole cover and a painted cross walk, all of which were thoroughly slicked, as we quickly discovered. On the downhill I tried to make my way forward, unfortunately I was already paying for my position-a guy in the top third of the pack wiped out (a UVM rider I think) and took out a UNH rider (they had an unlucky day). This created the first split as a group got around them smoothly while the back third grabbed their brakes opening up about a 50 to 100 meter gap. 100-200 meters later the next turn-another left, this time into an uphill occured, and the pack disintegrated into a scattered line as some guys pedaled through the turn, some guys rolled, some braked, and another crashed. I was in the pedaling category so I hopped out, whipped into the right turn and promptly had my back end swing out an extra foot as I rode over the slicked man hole cover-I stayed upright, but dear god my heart was in my throat. This turn led into a slight downhill for about 100 meters, and quickly cut left into the second most god-forsaken turn of the race. Normally it wouldn't have been a big deal, a 90 degree turn with a decent amount of space, however to make things interesting this turn was covered in orange warning paint to show you all the holes in the road (a guy had taco'd his wheel in one in the C race). Thus as you took the turn it was nearly inevidable you'd hit a bump, and all you could do was pray your wheel came down in time so you could make the turn. This brought you into the only significant uphill portion, where happily I could pass guys pretty easily on. Somehow though the turn after the uphill always caused people to slow down, and worse they wouldn't hold their line. Bounce over a few cobbles and lap one is done...29 more.
By lap two, I was simply trying to find a group of riders who looked to have a clue (you'd think in the B race it would be easier...hah), things went well in this lap accept for the third turn where all I heard behind was the "crack-grinnnnnndddddd-crack" of a bike and rider hitting pavement and slidding to the curb, he was cleared up by the next lap. Things went mediocerely into lap 5 where I realized I was farther back than I should've been and that the group I was riding with couldn't hold their speed in a turn (and proved it when the lead kid locked his rear wheel going into the big turn-he kissed the hay bale). Thus I had to break, which would've been cool accept the next group was 200 meters up-so away I went cutting the turns as hard as I could, with little to no braking, and made it up, by the end of lap 5.
At this point I was way too close to blowing up so I sat on the back drafting, again realizing I was still too far back. On lap 6 I wittnessed the nastiest crash of the day. Turning into the uphill, a kid from BU or MIT (maybe Harvard...they're all in red) hit a bump and wheelied. To his credit he stayed up, unfortunately he couldn't turn with just his rear wheel and went straight into the curb where either his chainwheel or rear wheel hit the curb and surmsaulted him face first into the pavement. This happened in about a second. He was still on the ground in lap 7.
By lap 8, I was attacking again by now desperate to get out of the back group, though by then my body had finally warmed up to attacking and I wasn't blowing up. Unfortunately it turned out that it wouldn't matter. By lap 11, 2 break aways, a solo lead, and a 2 man chase had extended more than half a lap off the lead pack (the solo guy was close to three quarters up) and was being lead by the officials car who whistled my entire group off the road. Of course the carnage wouldn't stop, as I sat on the rode fuming at myself for letting myself get dropped early I wittness 4 riders, 3 UNH and a UVM domino on the downhill turn, each locking his rear wheel, losing it, and the sliding to the curb-though the UVM kid who managed to run over the last UNH rider and then summersault over his bars instead. All four of them had to be carried away.
Having exhausted my knowledge of 4 letter words, my buddy and I trekked back up to the finish line and our stuff. The race ended up being cut down to about 20 riders, the lead soloist who lapped the chase pack, the second break (who ended up becoming a solo after a rider kissed hay on the downhill) and the lapped chase group whom they didn't pull but made them finish a lap early with the lead soloist, my consolation was my other teamate placing 4th.
This was the craziest race I have ever witnessed in my short time as a rider, while I've only been racing for 7 months I saw more stupid handling than I ever thought possible (think cat 5), especially in a collegiate B race (its compared to Cat 3), that combined with the degree of technicality and the weather leads me to dub the Boston Beanpot Crit the sketchiest crit ever*
*In my limited experience