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Written by Andrew Freye
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Thursday, 06 October 2005 |
On Friday, September 30th I went to work like usual, but was unable to finish the job that I was working on. No big deal, this just meant going into work before my first collegiate race on Saturday afternoon at UNH. So 5:00am Saturday morning rolls around and the alarm goes off and I'm up and off to work to put in grade stakes at a new condo development being built in South Portland.
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I arrive at work at 6:00am with a 7-11 Big Gulp coffee and I'm reading to get to work. By 10:30 I was finished at the job site and able to head on down to UNH for the bike race. By the time I got all dressed up and did my pretend warm up I was ready for a nap not a bike race. The caffeine in coffee doesn't last all day.
The race was 4 five mile laps. I started out in front setting the pace on a dirt road. I was pretty tired and fell off my bike! I felt like an idiot because I caused a pretty big pile up and I was now in dead last. It took me the rest of the 1st lap to catch the lead pack. As soon as I caught up to the leader, Collin from UMASS, he put in an attack which I was not able to respond to. All of lap 2 and 3 I was trying to close the gap and catch up to Collin. I was not doing well; eyes were going cross-eyed the legs kept feeling heavier and heavier.  | | click to enlarge |
On the start of lap 4 I managed to catch up to Collin and sat on his wheel. Half way through the last lap Collin cramped up bad and he had to get off his bike. After Collin's cramp I road a steady pace to cross the finish line in 1st place. This is my 4th straight victory in a row!
Columbus Day weekend was a weekend off from racing for me. My father and I did our yearly bird-hunting trip and went up north for the weekend. It was nice to get away from everything and enjoy the outdoors with out a bike.
10/15/05 - New England Verge Series #1.
This is my only cyclocross race of the year and this is also one of the 5 biggest races I will do all year. The field was stacked with some of the best riders in North America competing for UCI points. The weather was allright, (lots of rain = lots of mud = good), (cold air temp = not so great). There were probably 30 to 40 riders at the start line. My start wasn't that great and I was sitting in the low 20's. After the first two laps I had moved up to some where around 15th. As the race progressed I kept on moving up slowly and putting a bigger gap on the people behind me.
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On the last lap I had caught up to Peter Wedge (Pro Kona Rider - 5x Canadian National Cyclcocross Champion) and actually passed him. However, in the last 500yrds Wedge caught and passed me. I tried giving it my all and stay with him but I just didn't have it in me. I did have a bunch of screaming Bikeman fans cheering me on the whole race which helped motivate me to throughout the entire race. Thank you guys! I finished 9 seconds back from Wedge in 8th place overall and 2nd place for U-23. This put an end to my winning streak, but it does extend this year's podium count to 20!
The next two weeks are collegiate races then my season will be over. My form seems to be coming around and I should be in good shape for collegiate nationals on the 29th of October. I will keep you updated on how that goes. Thanks for all the support.
Andrew Freye, Team Bikeman
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