I’m on the plane right now, trying to get some sleep but the 6-hour layover will kill me later (it’ll be like pulling an all-nighter, right?). So I figure now is a good time to document my thoughts on Fitchburg.

After spending about $350 to race CTSR (boat fees, gas, registration, food, supplies etc.) I convinced myself I could not drive off-island to race Fitchburg. Luckily, I have some great friends and teammates, notably Steven Hopengarten for coming down to Woods Hole to grab me, put me up at his place in Lincoln for the long weekend, drive out and provide race support for GLV, and lend me his car to drive back to Woods Hole with Keith. We would have liked to have him racing with us in the Cat.3 field, but he was logging a long season already and needed a break (which some of you might have read already). I would also like to extend a thanks to Steve’s parents, who were great hosts for the weekend providing the team plenty of sleeping room and breakfast/dinner after the long and hard days.

Day one: ITT – I forgot my aero equipment in CT, which only consisted of clip-on bars and helmet, but in general those were huge benefits I wish I had. The weather was misty and cool, the roads a little slick but I had hoped to perform better than I did in the CTSR TT. I of course (again) went out a little too hard, and noticed that the course would be mostly false flat/small rollers after the turnaround. I was passed right before the turnaround by a fellow who goes by the name Austin Moran (no relation) but its always cool to see someone with pretty close names be racing the same field at a NRC event (and he was also rocking a nice TT setup as well). I struggled on the way back, placing late-seventies, 20 seconds in back of Keith and 25 in back of Lachance. As a lot of us expected, the Soul Train blasted through the course to grab the TT win. We thought he maybe should have been a 2 beforehand, but why not sandbag a big stage race, win some money and upgrade after? Genius.

Day two: Circuit race – This race ended on a nasty little drag up to the line, rumored at about 15% for the last 400 meters of the circuit. I had no ambitions with that climb at the end; just hoping to not get gapped and finish with the pack would be fine by me. I found it hard to maintain position for this race (not that I can climb anyway, but I can hold my own powering up it if it only lasted a few hundred meters. On the backstretch you could make up some considerable position and move up on the left side of the divider, though there was a decent headwind and some sketchy riders making me nervous. In the end I stayed out of trouble, finished with the pack and conserved some energy for the next day.

Day Three: Road Race – After driving this course the day before, I knew this was not the road race for me. The major climb leading up to the finished kicked up three times without any real place to recover, but I was going to give it a good shot nonetheless. Keith nabbed some point in the Circuit race, and was only 5 points off the jersey lead, so I was going to try and help him get some more to see if he could be in contention for it going into the crit the next day. On the first of six laps, I got to the front with Keith and kept an eye on things, taking turns with the pace making. As the climb started, I felt good until the last kick before the finish turn. I started dropping back a bit, but I noticed Keith ahead of me, but dropping back fast than me. I went alongside him, saw if he was alright but he seemed to be in a lot of discomfort. I tried to pace him to keep up with the pack but we were gapped going into the feed zone, and after a downhill saw the field pulling away from us. We continued to go at it together, picking up and dropping stragglers, hoping to catch back on but we knew it was a bit too late. Even the field getting neutralized wasn’t enough for us to get back on. I was taking the long descent conservatively, with the speed wobbles becoming a nuisance I didn’t want to risk losing control like I did at CTSR. On the lap 4 climb coming into the finish line, Keith noticed my rear tire was losing air. I hadn’t felt it while climbing but he easily could see it. When we got to the top of the hill before the descent, I told Keith to go it alone because I was going to take absolutely no risk on the descent (with no neutral service behind you, you might as well keep going, right?). So I took the descent at like 25-28mph and by the bottom, the tire felt pretty low, and I was just praying for some neutral service to come and save my day. By the time I started climbing it was pretty much flat, and I had some nice words for the race officials at the finish line when they informed me I still had to complete the final lap despite my flat. Whatever I said must have garnered some reaction, because by the time I got to the end of the feed zone, the SRAM car came speeding up behind me, gave me a new 404 and I bolted down the descent and the rest of the final lap to finish only 25 minutes down. Great. Keith finished maybe 10 or 15 minutes ahead of me, and Lachance managed to stay in the pack the whole race (great showing for him in his first Cat.3 race). At least I was in the time cut, but I got thrown towards the back of the GC. Afterwards Steve took me to a post-race BBQ at Frances’ (Mt. Holyoke) place in Fitchburg. There were many collegiate racers on hand, most notably the UVM guys, so it was a good end to a good day, despite the poor finish.

Day four: Crit – This crit course was fast and furious, with a lot of jostling for position and a brutal headwind in the finishing straight. Keith had a very active race up from netting a few prime points here and there. I was up there at the beginning, but a crash in turn 3 coming out of a long downhill caused me to hit the guy in front of me while slowing down, and the guy behind me also hit me but we were back enough that we stayed upright, and rolled over to take our free lap. I took a rear pit wheel for safety, and once I said I had campy, the guy pulled out an 808 from the piled, what an awesome wheel to race on! I felt like I could accelerate a lot better (probably because my 404s are older), and I made my way back to towards the front again. I saw Lachance long enough to have him flat right in front of me, but I got around him just fine, at least it happened in a straight part off to the side. I got to the front with 4 to go and prime lap, and chased down an attack from a Westwood Velo guy on the downhill with Keith on my wheel. Keith proceeded to counter attack right before turn 3, but took it a little too hot, hit a bump, knocked his seat off the rails and went down. I was third wheel, so I slowed down as much as I could to hit the hay bails and keep moving , but by the time I regrouped, the pack was gone, people were pissed off with no free lap and I rolled in behind the pack after three cool-down laps to get awarded the same time as the finish. So at the end of the day, we weren’t in any position to hold our heads high, but it was fun for my first Fitchburg nonetheless and I hope to come back next year in better form and with a big Cat.3 GLV turnout.

I’m gonna try and get some sleep now, lots of buildings to see in a few hours.

Summer racing and the Vineyard

Two more days and I'll be in Amsterdam. Great way to start off a study-abroad semester I think, four days based based there with day trips to Rotterdam and Utrecht, should lead to many fun times. I'll be sure to take up the Heineken Brewery Tour, I hear its a blast when big groups take it together so I hope everyone will come out for one of the nights there. From there we'll move on to a road trip day, stopping to see and sketch a few prominent buildings, making it to Paris that night. Three days in Paris, seeing alot of Corbu along the way, and then a travel day to Basel. One full day there, and then a half a day in Zurich, with our flight to Berlin that night. What a way to start eleven days in a three month abroad semester. We'll also have a three-day trip to Prague in September and a six-day trip to Rome in October, and numerous day-trips to other German cities. We have two optional travels as well, so I'm going to try and work in going to see a big Belgian cyclocross race.

My relocation to the Vineyard for this past summer (and all the previous summers) put a hinder on my intended big summer of racing. But, I had two races that I set my heart on for the year, the Connecticut Stage Race (being right next to my hometown of Torrington) and Fitchburg. I was able to get off island for CT, driving back home and hosting a couple of the GLV riders at my house, and getting amenities for those I couldn't fit at my place. I was hoping for a good GC result, but that also means you must have at least a top-10 in the time trial. I had a hard time transitioning from shorter 2-5 miles TT's to the 8-mile one, like the ones at CT and Fitchburg. It has alot to do with the courses, but I also felt like I wasn't warming up right and going out too hard, finding the last 2-3 miles hurt alot. I finished mid-field, got passed by two monsters in full TT-bike setups. As a key to stage race success, I hope to work alot on my time trialing ability over the winter and through collegiate season. At least I got a cool snapshot:


The circuit race was a bad experience, it reminded me of a certain circuit race at Rutgers where I had a mechanical the second lap. However here, I dropped my chain first lap before the drag up the finish, it took the neutral support guy almost a minute to pull my chain from between my crank and frame, left a nice chip in the paint, dropped me off the back for the rest of the race, and the guy gave me a nice hand print of grease on my new GLV bibs. I had to put some serious hurt down to finish within the time limit, so I could do the road race the next day. I saw nobody for the whole race, except the pack lapped me on their sprint up to the finish while I kept chugging away with one lap to go. I saw one guy ahead of me halfway through my last lap, somebody who must have gotten dropped awhile back, and managed to pass him on the last climb up to the finish to save DFL humiliation. I guess there were a few DNF's too, but it sucks to lose ten minutes on GC just like that. At least I got within the time limit and could race the next day.

The road race was a bit of an epic, 91 miles for all fields (even cat 4's!) but I expected it to be hard for me, being there some steep rolling hills in the second half, and hurting a bit from the circuit race effort. Five miles in, there was a really long desent, and I caught myself with my hands on the hoods, and kinda panicked when I got some violent speed wobbles. I thought I flatted, but I knew I was losing control, and didn't want to go down in the middle of the pack and on the pavement. There was some nice meadow grass on the side of the road, and I proceeded to hit the brakes and slow down as much as I could while gliding into the tall grass, eventually landed gently (about as gently as you can slowing from 55mph), recollected myself, surprised that I wasn't flat, and was paced back into the pack by neutral support. I only had a few scratches on my knee and a nice hole in a new jersey from the number ripping off in a corner. I continued on trying to relax at the back of the pack, and soon felt the need to make my presence at the front and stay near Keith and Mark. I got gapped in the feed zone looking for a feed, not noticing my teammates had grabbed everything for me, and Keith came back to pace me back in. As soon as the steep rollers started, I knew I was in trouble. I made it over the first few, but soon just accepted the pain I was in, from all factors, was too much, and I dropped off the back to solo the last 37 miles, coming in maybe a half an hour down. Not the result I wanted, but it was a good experience racing near home and hosting the team at our first big stage race weekend. We as a team were pretty well prepared, I thank all the GLV teammates and supporters for a great weekend all around, we had some awesome results for the Cat 4 field.

Wow that took awhile, I'll talk about Fitchburg tomorrow.

Blog Resurrection

So, its been awhile...

I ended the collegiate racing season in less-than-good form, basically riding maybe once a week and just racing on the weekends. My final project kinda took over at school, and called it a season. Next year I am planning on going back to A's and staying there the whole season, whether or not I get shelled. Maybe I'll get lucky one weekend when nobody shows up because of some big USCF race and I'll score points for nationals, I heard it worked for this one kid at Union.

So came my summer, and having a required co-op led me to search all over, despite the rough economy. I ended up going back to Martha's Vineyard for the NINTH STRAIGHT SUMMER. Don't get me wrong, I love the vineyard, its a great vacation spot, but dealing with a disconnect from the mainland and dealing with the boatloads (literally) of tourists gets to you after nine years. However, it wasn't all that bad as I got to go back to the great job I had last summer interning at Hutker Architects. I got to work on a lot of cool projects this summer, and on top of all the work they have despite a turning economy, they're getting ready for an office renovation, a website update and a book coming out soon, so I forward to seeing great things from them in the coming months.

Now, the main reason why I have decided to pull up this blog again is for my coming semester abroad trip. I want to keep my friends and family updated on the cool stuff we're doing around Europe, with plenty of photos and talk on how much we're (not) focused on studio work. My flight for Amsterdam is this coming Wednesday, and from there we'll head to Paris, Basel, and eventually Berlin for the rest of the semester. I just got an awesome new camera to help in my travels, finally getting past a point + shoot and moving up to a sweet Canon Rebel XSi DSLR system.

I'll update tomorrow with some details of my racing season (and all other misfortunes) of this summer. Off to bed, last day of work tomorrow.

Gute nacht (I'll attempt to learn German at some point)

Fun in Delaware

My teammates backed out of Columbia, so I didn't get to go. I love that crit too. This past weekend, I wasn't going to miss a weekend because my school is maybe incapable of sending my team long distance. Luckily, Natan and the guys at BU were able to bring me along for an awesome weekend. I left my studio class at 2 on Friday, headed over to the BU lot to wait for the vans, load them up and leave just before 4. I would say Natan had a good drive down, but we did get pulled over on the Garden State Parkway, and luckily garnered a warning to a van full of 11 collegiate cyclists. We hit Olive Garden in Cherry Hill around 9:30, eventually got to the hotel around 12, crammed 7 to a room, did a quick shave and got to bed before 1. Woke up to realize we had a 7-minute drive to the race, and decided to hit up Waffle House across the street.

The Road Race on saturday was awesome, the B field didn't let any break go more than 200 meters up the road before we eventually reeled them back in. I felt great the whole race, and was happy with 11th but I know had I not got cut-off in the last turn and almost taken out by a crazy crash, I would have been on the back of the UVM train and probably could have pulled a top-5. I give all the credit to Chebot for the win, I could see him jump at the right time as I was trying to get by as many people as I could. Nice victory salute, and I'm not going to say I advocate taking your hands off the bars in a sprint finish, but to those who do it in a non-dangerous, non-sprinting situation can benefit from how to Victory Salute Like A PRO:

Robby knows how to do it right.

Saturday after the races we hit up main street in Newark, grabbed dinner and headed back to the hotel to shower, watch Super Troopers on TV and pass out early. Sunday we woke up at 5:45 to get in some Waffle House before the ITT. The course was fun, I got to ride it beforehand, but wished I spent more time on the trainer getting loose. Nevertheless I got 11th with a decent time, felt like I should have pushed it in some parts and upped the cadence a bit, but what can you do. Anybody have ITT pictures? I'd like to see if there is a pic of me looking weird in an aero helmet but no TT bars.

Most of you that may or may not be reading this knows how things panned out for the crit on Sunday. Many people were going down in a blind S-turn which included a flat brick crosswalk interupting the slope, which sent 4 or 5 to the hospital including the motor pace bike driver! Needless to say, after seeing so many ambulances come and go on the course, I wasn't taking any risks on that turn in Alan Atwood's death crit. It was hard for me to find a line through it that I was comfortable with, and fell back quick, and 4 or 5 of us got gapped from the main group and just fell back. At this point I really didn't care anymore, my only ambition of the day was to not get injured so, taking it easy I eventually got pulled. Whatever, I'm finding that I prefer a road race to a crit anyday, but crits are essential to racing in this country, and I better start sustaining the constant hard effort and accelerations alot better, I think I'm sprinting well but I just need to get a little more comfortable taking turns at speed.

We didn't get back to Boston until about 1:45 AM, which prompted me to ride back to WIT, drop my stuff of and head to studio to stay up and get my work done. Lets just say, sleeping didn't happen. I was impressed with myself, I didn't resort to caffeine pills or anything like that to help me stay up, I was running on adrenaline (I guess?) which is hard to do regularly, let alone after a day of two races. The key is to stay on your feet, as soon as you sit down and lay back all it takes is ten seconds to fall asleep. So after a two-race Sunday, I didn't get to bed until 10PM Monday. Not bad, its just the nature of architecture. I got some work done to help saturday night and the car ride home, but we all know that for the most part not much can get done on race weekends.

My wallet is empty, and therefore I am not making it to Philly, I also would not like to fall behind on my studio project. I'll hit Wells Ave of course to get some action in my legs on sunday, and hopefully get out to Army and Yale in the coming ECCC weekends.

Rutgers/Princeton Awesomeness

Well in the first race weekend of the year, I could say that I was pleasantly amused at the outcome. The weekend started off great, Greg and I won our studio competition project after sitting in on the jury session for over three hours on Friday. We had a bit of a rush getting all packed to head out, but were finally on the road at 6:30. Only making quick stops, and maintaining a fairly high speed throughout, we made it down to our hotel in Edison by 11. I couldn't figure out the Days Inn wireless password, so we were going to take the longest way to the ITT, but luckily some cool Kutztown guys gave me the quick route from the hotel.

The ITT was the start of some signs of a bad day for me. My thought was it was going to go well, especially with doing the Landry's ITT the week before. My hopes for winning my heat at the event were high, until some bloke from Princeton entered my heat, but I ended up getting third out of 16 in the heat, 25 seconds off of Bennette and ended the day sixth overall in collegiate, 335 watts over 19 minutes isn't bad (if only I could lose some weight!). So even though the previous ITT went well, it ended up not so much. Maybe it was the short length of the course that made me go too hard, maybe it was the bad stomach ache and subsequent bathroom rush right beforehand, but I wasn't going to be full strength. I shot out too fast, felt great though until after I came back past the start, began to feel a little fatigued, and right before the second turnaround I got passed by the Kutztown rider starting behind me. DAMN! After that I didn't have the same kick left to get a great acceleration out of the turnaround and ended at 6:24, 16 seconds better than last year but given better weather and general level of fitness I should have been alot faster.

Then, the crit. What a great course this was, and even more fun was coaching the Intro fields to get to preview the course a bit (as well as give out advice to the newbies). By the time the A race came along, I had ridden the course alot and thought I would be as ready as ever... nope. I lined up on the front row, which would have given me great starting position had I not slipped my pedal on the whistle. I still was mid-pack going up the climb, and everyone was flying off the bat, it was hard just to keep pace up the hill, and once you got to the top the acceleration downhill was brutally fast, and taking the corners at blazing speeds wasn't bad, it was just the intensity of the accelerations after the corners that my legs weren't feeling good for. I popped off the back on the third lap, saw Steve drop his chain on the hill, which was a shame because he's a good crit rider and just made a silly mistake that can cost you, which I had one the next day. Steve, myself (barely), Derek from UVM and Anna McLoon (the all powerful girl who can destroy the Women's A race and still sit in the Men's A race after for quite awhile) were kind of in a pack strung out because of my inability to accelerate, but all got pulled once we were lapped by the mighty Nick Frey and eventually the field.

Given a good meal and decent amount of sleep, Sunday should have went pretty well... nope. I avoided riding around too much before the race, periodically doing half laps of the circuit between races to stay fresh, got on the trainer awhile beforehand and was feeling really good. Here comes the big mistake: I put my computer magnet on my wheel upside-down. The race started and after two laps of the circuit I felt really good staying in the pack, but all of a sudden I hear a ticking noise. My wheel magnet rotated because of the wind pushing against it being upside down, and it started to hit the cadence/speed sensor mounted on the chain stay. It got annoying and I got worried, so I reached down just to push the sensor out of the way, and one of the two zip-ties that was holding it snapped, causing the sensor attached to the other zip tie to fling around the end of the chain stay and knock against my spokes. Obviously, I had to stop at this point and rip the sensor off the other zip tie and throw it in my pocket. In the ten seconds it took me to stop, get off, rip off the sensor, and get back on, I already los significant ground on the main field, and after a hard lap of pounding the pedals, I knew I would never catch back to them. So after 5 laps of soloing way off the back (pissed off enough to keep pushing it but wasn't going to just quit) I finally got pulled. I rode slowly around the course in disgust after feeling really good about the race, the field went by, but on the backside of the course was Graham from Brown, a UMass rider and Anna McLoon pacelining off the back of the field. They told me to hop on the back, to which I replied "I've already been pulled,..." at that second, I realized I was displeased with myself enough to just hammer it away on the bike, and I added "but I'll hop on anyway!" So I started pacelining with them for two or three laps at a pretty decent pace, even though I was already done I didn't care, I wanted to keep going. Our group got pulled after a few laps, before the field came around again, but afterwards I felt much better.

And thats my story of how I got pulled three times in two races. Beat that. My ambitions for next Columbia are pretty good seeing as how B suits me better for a category. For someone who barely gets in 8-12 hours a week on the bike, I couldn't train enough to keep up with the A's all season. Architecture studio work will pick up here and there, and there will be weeks where I can't get in 6 hours on the bike because of work, in the end I'd rather be competitive and give A my best shot for next year.

My favorite AToC pics (and others too)

So after a week of a studio deadline while glancing at the Tour of California tracker now and then, I'd like to bring up some photos which describe what I enjoyed about the race this year. First off, the online tour tracker was great, because I don't get Versus on campus and was in studio most of the time anyway. Second, Frankie Andreau isn't the greatest commentator in the world, but he still makes Craig Hummer look like a retard (he is one). Bob Roll has started to grow on me, so I don't mind adding his thoughts to the mix (as long as they are somewhat understandable, he knows what he's talking about for the most part).
Also, Johan Bruyneel getting to shave Roll's head: priceless.
There were some fantastic looking kits to see for this year, I had to start off with DZ's awesome US TT champ skinsuit, and the equally matching bike (all he needs is the helmet to be red white and blue)
Rock Racing's kit is just awesome. I mean, they'll probably take a step back from last year supplying their own clothing and a different kit for every major race, but Louis Garneau was glad to pick up the slack. ANARCHY!!!
Columbia-Highroad's kit is interesting. Not a fan of the fake six-pack, but the white and yellow is starting to grow on me. Cavendish thinks anybody who dislikes the kit can suck deez nuts:
Now, on to the fans. Oh, these people do get their 15 seconds of fame very stylishly, and this year's race didn't keep any of them from coming out. Big hair superfan is a definite hit:
The pope gave the peloton his blessing:
Gigantic Sumo guys bounced around as their small legs moved really fast up Palomar:
The Montana classic becoming more common:
This year the Longhorns made an appearance, giving more proof that this should be done in the ECCC:
Just when you need motivation, and the pain is getting so bad that it becomes the focus, all you need is a reminder:
For if you don't pedal, you could grow weak, and maybe end up looking like this guy:
And my absolute favorite, probably because of the blatant shot at Lance, is Mr. LIVECLEAN:
Leave your EPO at home kids. Lets start some outrageous ECCC costume-chasing crowds, preferably on climbs or time trials.

Okay, don't feel bad if my training power makes you feel like a 5 year old

You guys had to just go about posting your training data on your ECCC blogs, when no one wants to see how puny you are. I wasn't posting my data because I didn't want to make any of you feel bad, but you've left me no choice it seems.
Basically, yesterday I went for a 12-hour ride to home in CT and back, the first two hours or so I did 18-minute repeat intervals, but then whipped out some sprint paced intervals at roughly 4000 watts or so and jumped on the Mass Pike for awhile, getting alot of strange looks too. I called my mom on the way in, and she handed me the t-shirt I went to get via musette bag. On the way back I was just doing steady-state on the hills in western Mass averaging about 26. After I got back I recorded the data, but I was surprised to see it didn't graph my power output above 1800. Oh well, pretty much my average ride data not much changes as far as numbers.

I think I'm gonna return the SRM, I don't need it to school all you noobs for the collegiate season. In fact, you guys should really just quit now if you can't even post moderate power numbers. Take your bike, sell it on ebay, because you're all a bunch of tools, go ride your fixie around town without brakes and smash into cars because there is no place for you in the ECCC.

I'm going to hang out and play guitar with John Petrucci, who is pretty much the equivalent on guitar to me on a bike. Later

Wentworth's Top Secret New Team Kit

So our design man Greg Foti spent a good nine months or so on this design (on and off of course). We went with Hincapie Sportswear this year for clothing, thanks to the deal that they offered ECCC teams (thanks to Columbia for coordinating that) and we didn't stop short of accessories. Much to my despair, we couldn't get skinsuits because of the minimums for the very small team that we have, but going full-out with jackets, ls/ss jerseys, bibs, arm warmers, caps, t-shirts, gloves and booties. A $6K order is alot for a small team, but just about everyone got more than the basic jersey and shorts.

Now for the design:

TO BE UNVEILED AT RUTGERS

Yes, this design is going to be a hands down favorite for the Best New Jersey on the ECCC Survey at the end of the season. But I will give some hints:
White is very Euro, the pureness of style. For those of you not familiar with the concept of Euro, you should read up on the Rules of the Euro Cyclist: http://www.facebook.com/home.php?#/group.php?gid=2258201150&ref=ts

Now this is our mascot, the Leopard. One of our Architecture professors was asked to create a small face logo to be used for printed admissions material and so on, he was nice enough to let us incorporate it in our design. Don't assume that we just tiled them or copied a polka-dot pattern, this is unique and won't be seen anywhere else, you'll just have to wait for Rutgers to see.

Another ECCC Blog!

So out of a spur of the moment decision, I now have a blog. I probably should be doing CAD drawings, but I've had enough of that this week. When I have more time this weekend hopefully I'll fix up this layout and wide picture above.

I'm pretty pumped for starting the collegiate road season, after a good winter break of logging many hours a week on the bike, I've decided to start the season racing the A field. This will probably be the biggest wake-up call of my life, but after discussing with NU's Mark Theeman, its better to start in A because the B riders still crash as much as the C's and D's, especially in the begining of the season. I intend on getting my ass kicked to a certain extent, I'm a Cat 3 so I'm kinda qualifyed for A's, but I'm not training with Powertaps or SRM's and the only hint I have of what my power levels are come from a Kurt Kinetic Computer that only is accurate when I'm on the trainer. I got a Garmin Edge 705 over the winter though for when the race bike comes back from Calfee (thats a story for another time) and maybe down the road I'll make some investment into a SRM or PT.

Crashing is lame, and made me get four stitches at the Beanpot Crit last year because a Tufts rider couldn't corner a course on his own damn campus:
Here's the guy going down, MIT is about to slide and I'll get the instantaneous reaction of sliding too.
There I go, and for some reason I don't put my hands in front of my face, and...
BAM! This lucky photographer happened to capture the exact point my face hit the ground. That resulted in an angry ambulance ride to get stiched up, there's still a slight mark in my skin from it but for the most part you can barely notice it.

Back to CAD, might get to sleep around 4ish tonight, hopefully I can get some outside riding in tomorrow before it pours on Boston and drops below freezing again.