Opening the 2024 Season in New Jersey
I wasn’t supposed to race until at least May this year. I have been doing this bike gig a long time, enough to know that I no longer find joy in riding in the cold, wet, or dark to train, let alone race, so a target of May feels like a safer start to the season. And yet it was mid-March and I found myself enjoying a week-long bout of warm early Spring weather that coincided with daylight savings. So, I saw more sun in the day, remembered that life was great, and had all the usual musings of a New Yorker coming out of Winter who forgets that this happens every year.
Only this year, it also aligned with new bike week. I had just days prior picked up my new Factor Ostro Vam — the unofficial team bike of 2024, get ready to get saturated with content — my first new road bike that was not a hand-me-down in nearly 10 years. So, when Megan started earnestly hyping up Branchbrook mid-week and egging on the team to get out and race, I was possibly too easily pulled in and swayed to leave my May racing resolution behind and sign up. In fairness, a registration was signed up on my behalf, but I more or less agreed to it beforehand.
We woke up not quite ‘park race early’ but still too early on what turned out to be a fairly chilly morning (so much for that warm spring air) and headed out to Branchbrook park where the cherry blossoms had already started to bloom. We had 5 racing in the Women’s field - myself, Megan, Hannah, Lucia, and Aimee. With Matt by his lonesome following up in the Men’s 1/2/3 field. Our plan in the W field was to not really have a plan. Rather we’d check in with one another throughout the race, easing into racing and feeling out the legs, the fitness, and of course also the bikes - 3 of the 5 of us were riding on our brand-new Ostros.
Having only ridden my new bike once before and quite honestly only ridden outside on the road a handful of times this year, my main priority was to remind myself how racing works, to ride smooth and to feel out the new bike and how it performed racing. So, it turns out this isn’t really so much a bike race report its maybe more of a bike review that just so happens to have been performed during a bike race.
The race itself was fairly uneventful. If you know Branchbrook park, you know there is only one corner and a bunch of winding and sometimes also windy roads meandering around the 2 miles of the park. I haven’t raced here in quite a few years so new-to-me was the deteriorated condition of the road, rife with pot holes and chewed up asphalt. There were several attacks throughout the race to get away but nothing that stuck, a few laps of chill pace including a passing by the master’s field out on course at the same time as us, all leading to an inevitable sprint finish. We all took our own path in the last lap, not immediately well positioned for the finale but working out the cobwebs, and ended with a pair of top tens and all feeling solid in the finish.
Now, onto the bike. It’s been several years since I had an aero focused frame and it wasn’t something I was currently seeking out in a bike but let me tell you this thing races and makes you feel fast. I am not in top shape or race ready - read above plan to not race for 2 more months still - and so I assumed everything would feel slow and heavy and there was a good chance I would dangle off the back of the pack. But, even when the field surged and attacks went off the front, keeping the pace at a sustained high, the Factor just spun up so swiftly and stayed at speed that I honestly felt I didn’t need to put in the same sustained effort I would have expected. It was snappy enough that my legs continued to feel fresh for repeated efforts. Once rolling, the bike just wanted to go fast and keep rolling.
I opted for some narrower handlebars on this build because I give into trends on occasion and was pleasantly surprised that it all felt very natural while racing. I didn’t truly get to test the bike on corners as the sole one mentioned is quite wide (and yet still causes trouble as it proved to do particularly in the M 1/2/3 field that saw several crashes there) but it felt responsive. On the straightaways is where it really shines, and I felt smooth and in control - and Megan and Hannah also looked notably smooth and comfortable on theirs as well. It carried as smoothly as carbon can over the torn-up roads - and yes, please note that save maybe for the 2 nastier potholes on the back side of the course you can ride over everything else on this course!
This bike — and getting out to race a women’s field with a 30+ racers — has me eager and motivated for the 2024 season. Who knows, maybe even enough to venture out to several more races before May!
Branchbrook Photo Gallery by Matt and Others
Lisa has been riding and racing nearly all bike disciplines for over 10 years and was co-founder and manager of the former CityMD Women's Racing Team before its merger with To Be Determined, former board member of the CRCA, and always planning her next travel adventure or squeezing her fat bulldog just a little too tight.
