Autumnal colors were aglow Falmouth, Massachusetts, but the story was blustery, wet weather. The Really Rad Festival of Cyclocross made its inaugural entry on USA Cycling’s Pro Cyclocross Calendar (ProCX) for the first of two days of UCI Category 2 elite races on Saturday. Conquering strong fields and gale force winds at the Cape Cod Fairgrounds, Justin Lindine (/Hyperthreads/Apex Pro Cycling) escaped early for a dominating solo victory for elite men.
Lindine made his early move by taking the lead at the start of the second of eight laps. He started with a group of four other riders, but broke free quickly. The group included Kevin Bradford-Parish (Setcoaching p/b FSA), Scott Smith (Dirt League), Tyler Cloutier (TCCX), and Merwin Davis (Cycle-Smart), who took the holeshot.
“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," said Lindine, who won both ProCX races at HPCX in Jamesburg, N.J. last weekend. "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.”
For several laps, Bradford-Parish kept the pressure on Lindine by riding in second and kept the leader in his sights. Lindine would distance himself out front and ride alone for seven full laps.
“Kevin Bradford-Parish was keeping really close, you know, eight, nine seconds behind me, for the first few laps," Lindine said. "So I wasn’t super confident he was going to stick the whole time. 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 would gain a victory against the wind and 34 other riders in a time of 1 hour, 37 seconds.
“It was a bit of a gamble (riding out front alone). It was really windy,” said Lindine, who attended school at University of Massachusetts - Amherst. “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.”
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With four laps remaining, Smith caught and overtook Bradford-Parish. He would finish second behind Lindine.
“I started more conservatively,” Smith said. “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.”
Smith said he saw Bradford-Parish’s wheel catch something, which would allow Smith to catch him. The bobble would ultimately cost Bradford-Parish, who finish third, 42 seconds behind Smith.
“We rode together for about a lap," Smith said. "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. 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.”
From the early lead group, Davis would roll across the line in fifth, 3 minutes, 22 seconds out of first. Cloutier would finish ninth, more than 4 minutes back.
The second day of racing at the Cape Cod Fairgrounds continues on Sunday
