Bucks County Classic Criterium

By Lee Liu

I raced in the Bucks County Classic Criterium Men’s Cat 2/3 on Sunday Sept 8, 2024 in Doylestown, PA. This was my first race in a Cat 2/3 field. The course was a long 1.4 miles 8 corner hilly course, though not very technical in my opinion. There were some potholes, but overall pretty smooth (with the exception of three speed bumps on the long stretch of road after the descent). The weather was fine, chill but sunny. 

The Cat 2/3 field was full by end of registration, but only 70 or so riders showed up at the start. Many of them just came down from the Green Mountain just like me. I had two QCW teammates (but since this was my first, I didn’t know them prior to the start). I staged on the third row from the line. The first corner was right next to the start line, followed by a winding descent. I fell back quite a few places on the descent, but soon caught back on the climb. The climb was very gentle, but long enough that some riders suffered every time we got there. On last leg of the third lap, I followed a rider moving up to the third place right around the finish line while the peloton bunched up (‘get a photo while I could’ I thought). That felt good. But it didn’t last long. Although I knew very well that I would eventually be absorbed by the bunch, I didn’t realize how fast that would happen. I was towards the back of the leading group (there seemed to be a split, as I was told after the race). 

After that my tactic became crystal clear: survive. A lot of strong riders were dropped.

— I didn’t want to be dropped. —

My job couldn’t be more simple, just finish the race. It wasn’t excruciating, but it was hard. I looked at the lap count, but instead of thinking about when could I attack or when would others attack, I was just telling myself, ‘hang on, one less lap to go.’ The pace calmed down a little bit after 20 minuets. The four of us at the back of the group seemed to find a pattern: a gap would be opened up between me and the group at the bottom of the descent, and someone would pass me to try to close that gap on the long straight stretch, while I would come back up on the climb. I tried to stay on people’s wheel every time we went through that high speed turn at the bottom of the descent, but it never worked for some reason.

At the end of the second to last lap, the rider in front of me probably went too close to the fence at the final turn and fell down. Since it was an uphill turn, the speed was quite slow, and I was able to react in time to go around him. I wish my sudden break didn’t cause further chaos. Anyway, the final lap was quite easy for me, just sitting at the tail of the group, and I was even able to pick up four, five places on the final climb. I finished 34th or 43rd, it doesn’t matter.

I did find more order and less chaos in the Cat 2/3 peloton, but all of the riders were very strong. I think there are a lot for me to learn racing against this field, as well as my fitness.