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Next on tap for “the crew” was the infamous and oldest US crit, Tour of Somerville. Everyone was pretty excited, being the first daytime NRC crit that any of us had down in awhile. The downside was the race started at 2pm, the hottest part of the day, and was a cool 100k (k=kilometers). Nevertheless, we warriors lined up to do battle!

Since Hoppy is on some pretty good form, the plan for the race was simple: follow moves and work only if prospects in the break were good OR keep it together and set Hoppy up to do his THANG. Well, like all these NRC crits, the pace was hot and heavy from the gun. Everyone was pretty active going with moves and patrolling the front. Lo and behold a promising move went about half way in and none other than Key Rings (aka Trent Wilson) was up there in the break. Good that he was there, bad that there were 2 Navigators and 3 Colavitas as well. The break maintained a good gap till about 15 laps to go, when the attacks came on thick like a stirred up bee-hive. Willo covered 99 different moves, but his vigilance faltered for one instant and 3 of the 8 were off up the road. This was the teams queue to get to the front and chase. The 3 up front were working like a runaway freight train to stay away. Meanwhile, we grunts, (Evan, Pete, Phil, Neil and myself) set to task putting the brakes on this cantankerous group of outlaws. Slowly but surely the gap to the 3 renegades began to fall. Unfortunately, one after the other of us began to drop off like flies around a bug zapper. With 3 laps to go, several other teams began to join in, and with 1/2 of a lap to go, all was together. Hoppy, as always, had managed to get himself in a good position, and was ready to unleash fury on the helpless bunch. 400meters to go Hoppy was waiting to pounce like a half-starved hyena. 1 corner to go Hoppy was winding up and about to open a can of whoop-ass… THEN some hooligan named Davidenko took a bad line. Hoppy was forced to pop off to early like a firework with too short of a fuse. In the end, despite the last corner mishap, Hoppy was able to pull out a solid 6th place.

And thus goes the trials and tribulations of another NRC crit for the JJ’s boyz. Many a close call but still no cigar. We’ve been that close for about the last 10 NRC races we’ve done. All the pieces are in place, now we just need to put them together! Don’t be surprised to see that solid riding turn into a BIG W! We’ll keep ya posted.

Cheers, Ando

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