Crystal Anthony Takes Top Step, Lindine Solos to Victory
FALMOUTH, Mass. (Nov. 3, 2018) – Up against wet weather and gale force winds, racers took on the changing course of the Really Rad Festival of Cyclocross Saturday at the Cape Cod Fairgrounds in Falmouth, Mass. It was the first year the event had been upgraded as part of the USA Cycling Pro Cyclocross Calendar (ProCX). Crystal Anthony (Liv Cycling) took the top step in the elite women’s race and Justin Lindine (Hyperthreads/Apex Pro Cycling) escaped early for a dominating solo victory.
The event is a continuation of the Plymouth Festival of Cyclocross, which was started as the Plymouth Cyclo Cross in 1977 at the Plymouth-Carver High School. One of the first cyclocross races in the Northeast, the event was host to the 1984 and 1986 USCF Cyclocross National Championships. In 2015, it was rebranded as the Really Rad Festival of Cyclocross, with a focus to attract both beginners and seasoned professionals.
In the elite women’s race, there were swift punches in early laps by Anthony, Arley Kemmerer (Fearless Femme Racing), and Regina Legge (Trek Cyclocross Collective). The trio would thin out the field quickly on a wet and muddy course.
“I think there was a pretty big group the first lap,” said Anthony, who noted the three broke away and would race together for the majority of the five-lap race. “(It came down to) thousands of small decisions during the race I think. It was a race of attrition. There were some pretty bad lines you could take out there, and some better lines, and some impossible. It was definitely challenging.”
With two laps to go, Anthony blew the lead apart, pulling away from Kemmerer and Legge. She would continue to push through steady winds of 24 to 30 miles per hour and gain more time on the final lap, finishing in 46 minutes, 9 seconds. It was her second ProCX victory of the season.
Kemmerer, who would finish second, 14 seconds behind Anthony. She named the wind as a major factor in the race. With gusts of up to 60 mph, there was no relief on this course. “The wind took up any recovery that might have existed. So it wasn’t really advantageous to be going super hard. I think the expectation was that it was going to be an attrition race.
“I would say that the wind was, for me, the bigger factor (than mud or lines) because a few places where you would be able to sort of chill, you couldn’t,” added Kemmerer. “Riding into the barriers there was a very strong headwind. It felt like you were going to come to a stop. And cross winds too. A couple of times I got side-swiped with the dish of the wheels, and it threw me off my line, where I wanted to be. I had to counter-steer from the wind. That was an added factor today, pretty challenging for sure.”
Legge finished third, 16 seconds behind Kemmerer. With three laps to go, Legge began to gap off the lead duo. Legge explained, “There was one technical downhill, you turn into an uphill. I just couldn’t figure that out. Arley was just repeatedly getting away from me and building that gap. I would close it, and then she would open it back up.
“The wind made it really hard. Especially coming into the barriers, it was just a dead headwind. Obviously the wet conditions make it a little more challenging. It did start to dry up, you could find some better lines and they got beat out a little more rather than being so soupy,” noted Legge.
For the elite men, Lindine made his move early in the race, taking the lead at the start of the second of eight laps..
“There was a heavy muddy section a few minutes into the course, over by the bleachers, and I kind of got a good line through it and managed to make my way to the front. I knew with the wind and the mud, it was a day that I wanted to be in front, and maybe have a little bit of a gap. It frees you up to be able to make mistakes, if you make them, and pick your own lines. From there I just tried to keep the gap,” said Lindine, who won both ProCX races at HPCX in Jamesburg, N.J. last weekend.
For several laps, Kevin Bradford-Parish (SETcoaching p/b FSA) kept the pressure on Lindine by riding in second.“Kevin Bradford-Parish was keeping really close, you know, eight, nine seconds behind me, for the first few laps. So I wasn’t super confident he was going to stick the whole time,” said Lindine, “but I think he had a mechanical or something. I started making some cleaner lines three laps in. I had some dumb, unforced mistakes. I just tried to over-drive some corners. You know, you get it in your head that you can maybe take this corner five percent faster than you were, and you can’t.”
Lindine pressed on alone for seven full laps, fighting the windy conditions. He would win in a time of 1 hour, 37 seconds.
“It was a bit of a gamble (riding out front alone). It was really windy. It’s kind of like a catch-22, it’s nice sometimes if you can get a gap, if you are confident in your ability to pedal that hard for the hour then the wind works in your favor because nobody wants to chase in it (the wind) either. There were some spots where it was ridiculous though. The barriers were straight into a headwind. At one point I went to jump on my bike, and the wind caught me and I missed my saddle because it just blew me backwards.”
With four laps remaining, Scott Smith of Westhampton, Mass. (Dirt League) caught and overtook Bradford-Parish. He would finish second behind Lindine.
“I started more conservatively,” said Smith. “A group of guys went out hard, and I just didn’t think that we could do that for an hour. At least I couldn’t do that for an hour. And so I was riding about fifth for the first lap. Halfway through the second lap I kind of hit it out of that group. At that point, Lindine and Kevin (Bradford-Parish) were already gone. But I was able to hold steady in third and I had a pretty big gap to fourth. So I was pretty content with rolling around for third.
Bradford-Parish would suffer a mishap in the final laps of the race. He would finish third, 42 seconds behind Smith.
“Then, with about three or four to go,I rolled up on Kevin. He had a bunch of something, a rope or something, in his bike,” explained Smith.. “We rode together for about a lap. Then I attacked him through the off camber as hard as I could. I kind of heard him unclip, so I hit it just as hard as I could. Then I rode the stairs. I don’t think he was riding (the stairs). So I found a line on the stairs that I could ride. I rode those and put a pretty good gap into him going into two and one to go, and held that out to the finish.”
Racing will continue tomorrow, Sunday, Nov. 4. Follow live updates of the races on twitter from @reallyradcx and @usacyclinglive.