Grant's Tomb Criterium: A Race Report

My favourite race on the NYC racing calendar is Grant’s Tomb. It’s nice to have a race that rewards those who can corner and breaks up the monotony of park races and FBF (as much as I love those). Despite Grant’s having a late start, my body clock alarm went off at 6am and from that point until the whistle went I had the most insane nervous butterflies. I think it may have been to do with the forever changing forecast or watching Season 2 of The Bear - unsure.

Photos with thanks to Luis Bastardo

The plan for the day was to get Ben into the break. We (Alex, Baker, Ben and I) knew the break at Grant’s works, because it stayed away in the 2/3 field in the previous year. The race started and it was HOT both in speed and temp. I had a sweat constantly dripping down my forehead into my glasses, fun stuff. I started at the back and it was hard initially to move up, but I knew I could use a few matches because my cornering was dialed.

About half way a break went and eventually we set Ben up to bridge across. Baker did an amazing job slowing things down and then I picked him up on the uphill and did the same thing. Then at corner 2 I saw Ben dangling between us and the break. I knew I could get across to him by ripping the corners and I wouldn’t take anyone across with me. I put in a huge dig and got off the front solo (as planned) and made it to Ben to try and help, but he was cooked (Ben was on the come back from a crash a few weeks earlier) and it turned out so was I.

The field caught us and I told Baker I was cooked. But then with 1.5 laps to go I came alive again, I took some pretty big risks moving up but eventually got to maybe 10th wheel and a few behind Baker. His group went left and I saw them slow up so I made the decision to go right and unleash my sprint, pretty much at the bottom of the hill. Got pipped at the line for the last spot on the wide angle but I'd like to say that was only because I didn't know where the line was (there was a break of 4, a minute or so ahead).

Numbers for the data nerds 1322 max, 1268 for 5 and 1060 for 20 seconds. Not sure how I didn't spew! Anyway a super fun day out racing with the team!