Here is the race recap for the past weekend at UDel.

Saturday's Event - Road race (17 mi laps with 1500ft climbing per lap)

• D2-class (1 lap): Garrett and Joe both did well in this event. Garrett somehow was able to grab another first place victory while Joe took 7th. Pretty shocking because the road race is Joe's type of event. Apparently he lost both contacts in the race and wasn't comfortable participating in the full sprint. Garrett on the other hand bullied his way through two riders riding very close together, screaming angrily as he pulled into first.
• C-Class (2 laps): Ben, Corbin, and I competed in this. Garrett was kind enough to display the scores to the b-ball game as we rode by for our two laps. I got dropped from the pack around halfway through the second lap. I passed a few riders after getting dropped and eventually rode in a pace line with Corbin (fellow Nova rider) and two other riders. I beat Corbin in the sprint because he blew up right before the finish line and took my usual 19th place (out of 53). Ben got dropped after the first lap and I believe grabbed 41st or 44th.
• B-class (3 laps): James was holding his own with the pack. The b class did not split up nearly as much as the c-class. Unfortunately there was a big crash early on in the sprint which James got caught up behind it. James ended up getting 18th place. The two riders went down real hard in the crash, one went face first into the pavement and was knocked unconscious for a little bit. He was fine. The other army racer, got some serious road rash and went to the hospital. Apparently you could see some bone on either his elbow or knee.

Saturday's Event - Criterium (course map)
Note: the map in google maps is not up to date (all construction was fully finished and buildings were occupied when we raced) The course I mapped out on mapmyride doesn't really show the intensity of the turn. The location where the hazard marker is where there was a foot path across the road. The foot path was cut into the hill and cut level and made with cobblestones/bricks. Then right after the foot path there was a very quick change in grade that could result in some air if taken quick enough. I showed the picture icon where crashes would probably take place. Believe it or not, in the woman's B race, the pace motorcycle crashed at this turn and he had to be taken to the hospital in a stretcher. They used a follow car for the remainder of the races and the car would squeal its tires after passing over this foot path a couple of times. Now for the races...

• D2-Class (20 min): Garret placed third and Joe placed 17th out of 31. Garret might be forced to join me, Ben, and Corbin in the c-class because apparently there is a rule if you grab three podium finishes you must move up.
• C-class (30min): for some reason Ben didn't get put up on the results. I, as usual, placed 19th... the epic curse, there were 45 riders. I did have one very close call almost eating shit on the nasty turn. After taking the turn pretty hard I began pedaling too early and scraped my left pedal on the pavement. I was pedaling hard enough that the force lifted my rear end off the ground and drifted it over a few inches to the outside of the turn. This also resulted in bringing the bike past perpendicular and angling a bit to the right, while my right foot automatically released from the pedal and i landed on my saddle. The crowd all yelled out with "ohhh" followed by everybody clapping as I regained my balance and pulled this one out of the bag with my superior bike handling skills. This incident cost my priceless seconds and resulted in my loosing the pack and fighting with the first follow pack. While Garrett had a valiant effort in cheering me on with various pictures, including one of a skoal tin, a failed to really remain in the race. I ended up completing 24 out of 30 min.
• B-Class: James did superb, throwing his usual race strategy to the wind and riding up front for a number of laps grabbing 2nd in two prime laps. He ended up placing 7th. His race was quite an awesome race to witness.

Check the Villanova Cycling website for pictures!

Garrett's Race Report

Mine is forthcoming... but here is Garrett's!

Garrett (me) did my first TT(15th)+Crit(11th) + Road Race in D's(8th)
Tahir did his frist TT + Crit + Road Race in E's
Josh did Crit(19th) + RR(19th) in C's
James did TT + Crit + Road Race in B's

The weekend went very well with the extremely warm, weather stuck with us
all weekend. The princeton crit had a legitimate climb after a hard right
hander which I and think many found quite challenging. Except for maybe Nick
Frey who gapped the A field by 52 seconds on a 1:45 second lap crit. No
crashes on our team which was awesome but there certainly were many in the C
and D races. The field of talent has apparently stepped up its game as in
the D road race we had mutiple legitimate attacks throughout the race rather
than a group ride with a sprint to the finish as I was told would happen.
Manny plans to move from C to D. Though after using his unreal bike skills
to avoid a 5 person end over end flipping crash mess in front of him at the
sprint to the finish in the raod race, it would clearing be sandbagging with
a move to D.  I personally learned that we should use some type of horn or
white board to relay information during a race to our riders as to what laps
we are on and where the leader (most likely us) is in relation to the field.

Priceless moment of the weekend.
. . . . . . .  . 15 feet from the turn in on a 20 mph 90 degree corner
Kid on Zipp 404's and Cervelo Bike in D Crit Race: "Hey man everyone needs
to brake at the same spot in to the corner so we can keep on pace to chase
down the lead group"
Me, "Alright man you got it"
. . . . . . .  0.004 seconds later . . . .  Crunch . . . . . .Psssstttt
(Tubular Blowout from hitting concrete curb)

Dude went too deep into the corner and ran out of road and in to a monster
curb. 

Snow in Virginia

So I signed up to work in DC over break at the IRS.  I had my official government employee orientation this morning (snooze).  However, my commute was far from a breeze, unless you count the wind that almost BLEW ME OFF THE BRADDOCK ROAD METRO STATION.  Seriously, water covered the raised platform, and it was like walking on ice at 6:30 this morning.  It snowed six inches in Virginia on March 2nd.  Clearly, I'm being conspired against when it comes to bike riding.

I decided to come here over break because I figured it'd be a balmy 40 or so degrees, maybe I'd be able to venture out in only arm warmers and knee warmers on my newly cleaned but still effed up bike.  I took it to the shop last week for a tune up, which turned into $179 for a new derailleur which is still making funky noises.  Freaking shimano 105, it's totally a piece of crap.  Some of us aren't nearly as good at bike maintanance as we are at bike riding, so we choose to pay people money to keep those complex machines running in tip top form.  It really frosts me when my bike comes out worse after mantance.

Back to the snow: I sincerely feel bad for the rest of you ECCC schools.  We're lucky to be at the southern end of the conference and snow still completely annoys the crap out of me.

Further updates: Less than a week till we race.  I'm 21 now!  Buying alcohol is fun!   Can't wait for the Thrilla'  I would love to do that ride from rutgers to princeton.  19 miles.  I'll just need someone to drive my car/ ride with me.  River road is a fun little bike jaunt!

Last, Bent Spoon for Primes???  Ask me what I think of Bent Spoon, their pretentious ice cream... how about HOAGIE HAVEN PRIMES?  Seriously though, Kudos to Princeton and Rutgers for what looks to be a great opener!