Pat Ruane and the Sunapee Racing Team want to bring the Concord Criterium back to its glory days. Saturday was a good start.
More than 200 cyclists competing in nine races spun laps on the 1.04-mile course around White Park in the 38th running of the Criterium. Spectators arrived despite the rain. And New England champions were crowned.
“We think it went really well being the first year that we took the race over. This can be sort of like a template and we can get an idea of what we can improve in the future,” said Ruane, the new race director. “The goal is to try and bring this race back to its previous luster where there’d be 500 or 600 riders here, not only from all over New England but from all over the country, and this is the first stepping stone to bring back the appeal for bike racers to come and participate again.”
Ruane, who lives in Bow and is from Hudson, has been racing locally for nearly 30 years. He was there in the late 1990s and early 2000s when hundreds of riders would descend on White Park from all over the country and beyond. He said numbers have steadily declined in recent years as entry fees have gone up while racing time has gone down.
“It used to be 50 or 60 dollars for entry fees and some of the races were as short as a half an hour, and that just turned the racers off,” Ruane said. “So the first thing we did this year was condense the fields, so we couldn’t offer all the fields we had in the past, but we gave everybody a minimum of like 55 minutes of racing and the entry is 35 bucks. And if revenue comes in from enough riders in the future, I would love to bring it down to like 25 dollars, just to bring it back.”
Even though the race coordinators have to think about things like future revenue, they’re not in it to make money.
“Our business plan is basically make no money, which is not a very good business plan, but this is more for the love of the sport,” Ruane said. “We’re going to lose money this year, but we’re willing to make that investment just to bring it back.”
In order to do that, Ruane hopes the racers who fizzed their tires around the wet streets of White Park on Saturday spread the word and, “tell everybody that they race or ride with, ‘Dude, you missed it, it was awesome.’ ”
Cole Archambault will probably do just that. Archambault, who races with Green Line Velo out of Boston, won the Men’s Pro 1/2/3 race, the most competitive of Saturday’s nine events. Since the New England Bicycle Racing Association designated the Concord Criterium as the New England Criterium Championships, Archambault won a regional title as well as some prize money.
“This is great. It had everything,” Archambault said of the Concord event. “It has spectators. It has all different types of corners, it has elevation. The course is safe, the volunteers did a great job and it was a great day to be out.”
The weather didn’t exactly cooperate, but the rain didn’t exactly deter anyone around White Park.
“Bike racers are pretty hardy. They pretty much understand if it rains, we’re still racing, like, no problem,” Ruane said. “The only time officials would really shut the race down is if it’s life-threatening weather conditions like lightning or a tornado … the rain really makes itself like a feature. A little group can get away because they are more efficient going through puddles and around wet corners while the other guys hesitate, and that’s exactly what happened in (the Men’s 1/2/3) race.”
Archambault and two racers from the New England Development team, Keith Mullaly and Ethan Call, separated themselves from the rest of the Men’s 1/2/3 field by staying aggressive in the wet conditions.
That group of three was about a minute ahead of the pack for large stretches, and even though Mullaly and Call had each other on the final, deciding laps, it was Archambault who crossed the finish line just ahead of Mullaly with Call taking third.
“I think it was all about experience,” Archambault said. “I love New England Development and they’re doing a lot of great things and developing a lot of junior riders really fast, but even though I was outnumbered, it came down to experience at the end and I had been in that position a lot before. They will have learned from this and they wont make the same mistakes the next time.”
The only local in the Men’s 1/2/3 race was Hopkinton’s Bretton Minnehan, who finished 15th.
One of the day’s most exciting races was the Men’s Master 55-plus, where David Foley from Stoughton, Mass., and weebikeshop.com came from the back of a large front pack on the last lap to take the win. Wilmot’s Chris Naimie, the longtime Bow High Nordic ski coach who is also part of Team Sunapee (which is sponsored by Buchika’s Ski and Bike and Continental Paving), finished 19th in the Men’s 55-plus.
“Even though its not the sexiest field out there, both physically and metaphorically, the 55-plus was one of the most exciting 55-plus races I’ve seen,” Ruane said with a smile. “All those guys have been racing for 30, 35 years, so age and life’s responsibilities have taken their toll, but they’re all so experienced and that race had lots of attacks, counter attacks, solo breaks and a great last lap. A bunch of geezers out there pretending they’re 20 years old, it was awesome.”
Valerie Hopkins from Manchester-by-the-Sea, Mass., and Team Errace won the Women’s 1/2/3 race. Concord’s Danielle Baron, who races with Team Sunapee, took third just ahead of her teammate Danielle Ruane from Bow.
Susan McDonough from York, Maine, and BMB Racing won the Women’s 4/5 race. Lillian Naimie from Wilmot and Team Sunapee was 15th.
Tate Kokubo from Arlington, Mass., was first in the Men’s 3/4 race. Weare’s Justin Clark finished 11th and Benjamin Kramer from Bow and Team Sunapee was 18th.
Keith Beausoleil from Manchester and State 9 Racing won the Men’s 5 race. Rob Parisien from Bow and State 9 Racing took third, Erik Dellea from Concord and Team Sunapee finished 11th and Will Swyers from Boscawen wound up 23rd. Sean Cahill of team DSO was first in the Men’s Master 40-plus event.
Joseph Krivitsky from Norwell, Mass., and DEVO Cycling Cape Cod won the Junior Men (14-18) race while Gilford’s Morgan McCarthy was fifth.
(Tim O’Sullivan can be reached at 369-3341, tosullivan@cmonitor.com or on Twitter @timosullivan20.)