College Search Round 2 + TdGrandview

Not much happening last week except that Mom and I went on a little road trip looking at schools.

Day 1: Bucknell, Lewisburg PA (Amish country)
Definitely my favorite. Everybody was nice. There's a little town only 3 blocks away, definitely riding/walking distance. I don't really like the big city, so that's definitely a plus. The roads are amazing, with smooth pavement and almost no traffic. I rode for three hours after our tour and got passed by at most twenty cars.

Day 2: Lehigh and Lafayette, Easton PA
Definitely my least favorite. Easton seems to be a very industrial kind of area, not good for riding. Nobody said hi when we were there, I know that might seem a little nitpicky but I think it says a lot about the people. In a bad way.

Day 3: Princeton, NJ
Decent, but disappointing. All the buildings look great from the outside, but they wouldn't let us go in anywhere. It almost seemed like they were hiding something. Maybe the insides of the buildings are kind of nasty, and they just don't want you to see. I hope that isn't the case, but that's what I have to assume I guess.

Day 4: Swarthmore, Philadelphia PA
Nice, but not what I'm looking for. The campus is beautiful, more like a park than a school, but the town of Swarthmore is dying and it seems like the big attraction for everybody is the proximity to Philly. There really isn't anywhere to ride within fifteen miles, either.

Grandview Crit: not much to report, really. I got down there in time to watch Jim G and Rich in the Masters. Rich looked to be in position to place until he crashed in turn three of the last lap. Kinda like me at Garrett Wonders last year. Anyways, in the 3/4 race we had six guys from NE Ohio rolling together: Me, Noah, Jim G, Cameron (RGF), Jared (Stark), and Matt (TT1, fresh off of RAAM). The start was insanely fast, or maybe it just seemed that way because I warmed up an extra lap and lined up last. I knew I had to move up, so I started working on that. Of course, I'd rather move up in the draft than go around in the wind, so that's what I did, just picking my way between the little gaps that opened up. That went great, until one guy moved over into me, which didn't really bother me but totally freaked him out, so he hit his brakes a little and came back into my handlebars (not on purpose, I hope). So that almost took me out within the first five laps, but it didn't, so that was exciting. Lap 7 or 8 there was a move that didn't look good for us so I attacked to try and bring that back. Lap eleven-ish there was a prime, and I was in good position so I went for it and lost. That totally wasted me for the rest of the race. I tried to stay up at the front where the cornering's easier but I kept sliding back. Fast forward seven laps and we have one lap to go. I've hung on for the whole race and have kinda recovered, when in the last corner, some guy rolls his tire and takes out a whole row of riders. Thankfully, I ended up scooting right between a guy and his bike, and I didn't go down. Unfortunately, that left me with no chance to sprint, securing my back-of-the-field finish. At least I didn't go down. There were at least four wrecks at as many near misses during the race. Try again next week at the Team Dayton Crit.

-Russ