The Inaugural Season Begins- (Written by Pat)

After months of training through extreme cold, wind, snow, and nasty roads it was finally time to shed the booties and toe the start line.  Only problem was that on March 5th at the first Branchbrook Park Cat. 4/5 race it was 30 degrees and we(Joe, Jeff, and I) were still dealing with all the conditions that haunted us all winter.  The race only got worse from there.  3 laps around the 2.2 mile loop of destroyed roads and dealing with the sketchiness of the first race of the year an errant rider took out my front wheel and bent the spokes.  Not the start of the season that I was looking for.  Joe spent the rest of the race trying to break away and chasing down attacks.  After 40 minutes, Joe finished at the back of the main pack.  Jeff got caught behind a pretty big crash and was off the back and unable to latch back on.  He battled nicely and finished not too far behing the main pack. 

Joe leading the pack at Branchbrook with me(Pat) sitting 5th wheel

Copyright © 2011 Jan Curran

The next race of the year was in Central Park on March 6th.  It was the first race of the New York Spring Series.  Joe and I lined up for this race, and we knew that the course suited us much better than Branchbrook. We sat in the peloton for the first lap of the 6 mile course.  We chased down a couple of attacks and were pretty antsy to get to Harlem hill on the second and final lap.  When we reached the hill, Joe launched an attack and got a gap.  I took a big pull to crest the hill and put in a bit too much work.  I fell off Joe's wheel about a half mile later.  I dropped back to the main pack and blocked/chased down attempts to bridge up to Joe for the next three miles while he soloed to Real Estate Rescue's first victory of the year! I sprinted for 2nd place and fell back to 6th.  Joe and I were both very satisfied with the result and were extremely excited about our climbing.

The rest of March and early April have been just as successful for Real Estate Rescue.  The results for each rider are as follows:

Joe- Branchbrook series- 32nd, 6th, 3rd, 3rd, 1st

        Augusta Crit "B" race- 2nd, 1st, 2nd,               "A" Race- 9th, 1st

        NYC Spring Series- 1st(in report)

Pat- Branchbrook series- DNF, 7th, 5th, 4th, 11th

        Augusta Crit "B" race- 1st, 29th                       "A" Race- 8th

        NYC Spring Series- 6th

Jeff- Branchbrook series- 40th, 32nd

       Augusta Crit "B" race- 21th, 9th, 2nd

Paul- Augusta Crit "B" Race- 39th (First Race), 20th

Battenkill post to follow shortly!

       

-PJ