Norwell, MA
The Norwell Circuit Race should conceivably be the crown jewel of mid-season bike racing in New England. It features a hefty prize list and an awesome course: a beautiful 2.3-mile loop on suburban, residential roads with usage of the full (and smooth) road. The course is fast too, and if you happen to be at the pointy end, you can go the whole day without even touching the brakes.
Colin, Sean, Toby, Adam, and Jason Beerman gathered on this hazy Sunday. The pre-race excitement included dispersal of delicious Clif products to fuel the second half of the season as well as Toby’s expeditious mechanic skills, as he replaced half of Sean’s drivetrain in 10 minutes flat in the parking lot.
The plan was to let the overexcited racers burn themselves in the beginning and then start launching volleys until something stuck with heavy Kenda/Raleigh representation. On the 3rd lap of 15, Toby followed a hard-charging Toby Marzot from Fiordifrutta over the crest of the big-ring finishing climb and it was game on. Beerman quickly bridged up to sandwich Marzot and drive the move until more reinforcements arrived in the persons of Fiordifrutta’s Matt White, MetLife’s Peter Bell, Sakonnet’s Nick Keough, and our own Colin. With representation from the two teams with numbers in the field, this was the move and the pace went atomic to establish the gap at around 30 seconds.
The time checks remained at around 30 seconds +/- 10 seconds ahead of a small chase group, so the sense of urgency up front never relented. That meant hard pulls and short lines through the corners. Sean and Adam had latched onto the chase group and were sitting in the catbird seat and conserving.
With 2 to go, the pace up the finishing climb proved too much for Bell and he was detached. Coming into the finishing climb, attacks and counterattacks went and Colin and Beerman were detached. Beerman clawed his way back to the leading 4, where Toby had ridden flat out to remain in contact, and the cat and mouse continued to the last corner into the climb. All the while, the chase group slowly gained and had the front group in sight. Keough was first through the corner and won - hats off to him for riding a smart race in the face of being outnumbered. Toby and Jason came through 4th and 5th, Sean won the sprint out of the chase group for 6th, and Adam rounded things out in 9th. Although not getting the win was frustrating, it was alleviated by the fact that the team stacked the top ten and stuck to the gameplan (almost) perfectly.
Full results are here.