This past Sunday, May 19th, I took part of the 9th annual GFNY "World Championship" event - a 100mi ride/race that leaves NYC from the lower level of the George Washington bridge, runs north to Bear Mountain, and then meanders back towards the city to end in Fort Lee, NJ. While many of the participants (Over 3000 riders) are riding just for the accomplishment of finishing the 100mi event (there were also about 900 riders who partook in the shorter 50mi version that ended at the top of Bear Mountain), the front of the ride is a full-on race for the best time to the finish. After some negotiation with the event organizer, myself and my teammates Jacob and John got entry to the racer's corral and waited for the start.
After an early wake-up, I met up with Jacob and John and joined the crowd waiting for the bridge entry. Once they finally let us start filing onto the bridge, we needed to get through the security check-point (again, a huge number of riders, so they really need to make sure things stay secure and safe). There was a bit of a snafu as I went through security and an over-zealous member pulled my race bracelet to read the number and tore it - this meant I needed to head over to the "re-numbering" booth to get a new race bracelet, bike number and jersey number attached - nothing too crazy, but it did mess up my live-tracking for the event, so a bit of a bummer there. We rode up to our corral near the front of the bridge and then proceeded to wait for the next hour for the event to start.
Once the gun went off, things were full-gas with riders sprinting off the bridge and into River Road for the first part of the race. I sat on John and Jacob's wheels as they worked through the crowd to help get me into the lead group of the race. My plan was to just sit in the lead group and try to avoid working as long as possible, so once in place, I just kept pace through the rest of River Road and up the Alpine climb. Once onto the 9W highway, things settled a little, although the pace continued to stay relatively high. The peloton stayed at a good clip as we worked into Piermont and onto Nyack. Leaving Nyack there was a moment of stress as two riders crashed into each other and fell right in the middle of the pack - I was able to swerve up and onto the curb to avoid the incident and rejoin the group while just losing a few spots. John had pulled to the side to make sure I was ok, so I yelled that everything was fine and we got back into the group and up Old Mountain Road (an undulating climb out of Nyack that then carries into a steady climb up Toga Hill).
The pace stayed relatively quick for the next ~1hr as we worked out toward Bear Mountain. Along the highway climb that leads to Bear, the pace increased, but not enough to cause any issues in the field. We hit the base of Bear and things picked up, but again I was able to comfortably stick in the lead group. At the halfway point, turning onto Perkins Drive, the pace ramped up with the grade, and I worked to stay along the back of the group, making it to the top with the peloton. We bombed the descent (I set the Strava KOM) and then started up the reverse of the highway climb. The pace dropped considerably as people were happy for the rest and regroup of the stragglers from Bear. We then proceeded to hit a segment of climbing back-roads as we moved toward the other main climbs of the day.
At this point, our lead group was roughly 20ish riders and there was a lone rider about 1min up the road. Some of the group were eager to work and chase toward the leader, but others were just hanging on the back. We worked over the Pinarello climb without too much incident and I found myself riding near the front with Bill Ash, who was joking that it was just like last weekend when we were riding together at the Bear Mountain Classic. We crested Gate Hill (the Pinarello climb) only 500m behind the leader, and again the pace would alternate between fast to try to catch him only to fall back to slow as the faster riders pulled off the front to rest. As we turned into the penultimate climb, Cheesecote, we crested the first steep segment without issue before a few riders attacked into the next steep segment and hairpin. I was unsure of the remaining length of the climb and chose to be conservative with working around the hairpin and toward the top that I could see, expecting more climbing beyond the rise, and unfortunately falling off the back due to this choice. Once over the crest (and realizing it was the end of the climb before a series of small rollers and fast descents), I tried to chase back, but it was not happening. I ended up in a small group of 4 as we worked to catch the leaders who were now roughly 15 strong.
My new companions included another NYC rider Erik Post (Jamison) along with two riders from out of town. Erik and I ended up doing the lion's share of the work as the others would take token pulls and then sit in the back for another rotation before working again. We eventually caught another rider, bringing our number to 5, and luckily this rider was cooperative to working. As we moved onto South Mountain road (and back onto familiar roads) we passed a large group of recreational cyclists out for a fast Sunday ride. As we moved past this group there were some rough words with some of the riders as they tried to jump into our pack despite our notification that we were part of a race. We luckily ended up turning onto a different road and leaving this group to go back to their rider. We continued to work together roughly for the next few miles before catching another rider around the final rest stop (roughly 30k from the finish). The now 6-strong group moved into a technical section along a rail-trail path and our most recent addition continually moved to the front and was asking everyone to work harder to try to catch the leaders. I put in some longer pulls to help out and as we exited the path around Piermont that rider decided the group wasn't working hard enough and jumped off solo. Erik and I continued to roll our pace with the others hanging on, but as we crested the State-line hill, we had now dropped to 3 riders - Erik, myself and one of the out-of-towners. At this point we knew the leaders were a decent distance up the road, and we assumed that we had a good gap on the chase, so we settled into a good rotation again to work together and reach the end. This was not to be however, as we were suddenly caught by a huge group right as we dropped back onto River Road (about 8mi to go!).
At this point I was determined not to get pulled to the back of this group after being away for most of the day, so I made sure to tuck into the group toward the front. The new group contained a lot of the local racers including Luiz Lanfredi (Benzel Busch), Paskal Lamour (Blue Ribbon), John Loehner (Benzel Busch), and Bastian Rose (E2Value), along with other strong riders. I made sure to stay in roughly the top 5 as we worked through River Road toward the final climb and then hopped onto John Loehner's wheel as we hit the climb and worked our way out. As we crested the hill, I was now in a group of roughly 5 riders and maybe a mile to the end. The group immediately started juking for a sprint despite the leaders having already finished the race. I urged the group to keep working and be finished, which fell on dead ears, so I jumped to the front and pushed hard to get to the end. As we reached the last 100m one of the riders sprinted us and posted up for a silly not top-10 finish, and John (former Pro) and I commented on the poor tactics. In the end I finished a remarkable 18th place with a total time of 4:30:03. After getting off the bike and receiving the great finisher's medal, I talked with Erik and thanked him for working well with me for the last 1hr or so and congratulating him on the solid finish (he ended up 22nd).
At this point it was time to enjoy the after-party, which was made even better by the presence of my girlfriend and our dog Roscoe. Another good weekend in the books!
