Univest Grand Prix

The Univest Grand Prix is a UCI race held in nearby Souderton, PA which attracts pro and amateur teams from all over the world. I was lucky enough to be invited to race in this high-caliber event with the CRCA/Empire team; a very talented amateur team based in NY, NY. The course itself is a 70-mile loop with 3 very hard KOM's, the most difficult of which is the second: Eichele Rd. which has sections of 22% grade! I put on a 38 chanring just for this climb today. Then the pack rolls back into Souderton and does thirteen 3-mile loop for a total of 107 miles on the day.

Scheming before the start, the sentiment was that the first 20 miles if always very fast and difficult as breaks try to escape, but nothing ever gets more than a few minutes gap and the race generally stays together. The pack usually gets smaller from people dropping off the back not being able to keep up with the pace. Because of this, we were all hanging out in the pack when a small break made it up the road. Race radio was slow to respond to who and how many were in the break. By the time the full report came in, most of the big teams including Slipstream, Navigators, Toyota United, and Kodak Gallery were in the break; so it was up to the smaller teams to mount a chase. However no one except for our Empire team seemed very keen on chasing. I went around the peloton asking teams that didn't make the break to help out with the chase, but no one seemed interested. The break was gone.

Coming into the closing circuits the gap to the break was so big that they wouldn't let our group of 40 onto the circuits! The cops had the road barricaded off in front of us forcing us to come to a stop. One of the cops standing there shouted "You guys are done, thanks for coming!" and that was it. My Univest was over.

Interesting notes: Eichele Rd. is STEEP! I got myself as far towards the front of our peloton as possible before hitting the climb; I was about 30 guys back when the steep part hit and the destruction started immediately. Riders were all over the road just trying to keep the pedals turning over. I had to weave back and forth across the road just to avoid the bodies that were imploding in front of me. At one point the in front of me couldn't keep his pedals turning and had to stop.

The climb was so steep he had to stop and get off his bike.

It was also very cool to see my name written across the road on the climb, thanks Dave! Also thanks to my friends and teammates who came out to cheer me on, that really helped too!

Tomorrow is the Doylestown Criterium which will be one more chance to race with the big boys and show what I can do. Racing today with the Empire guys was really fun, they're a very well put together team.