Lindine, Van Gilder Perform at Inaugural Nor’Easter Festival

by Jeffrey Bramhall

Laura van Gilder (C3-Athletes Serving Athletes) and Justin Lindine (bikereg.com-Joe’s Garage-Scott) powered their way to wins at Nor’easter ’Cross presented by Smartwool and Cycle-Smart this afternoon. This first-year UCI race at Loon Mountain in Lincoln, New Hampshire, took full advantage of the terrain by mixing two challenging climbs, several off-camber descents, two run-ups and two long paved straightaways linking the sides of the course. The unique course wrapped around and through the Nor’easter Festival, going in front of the main concert stage and around the rock climbing competition. For the race organizers, this was an opportunity to show a largely unfamiliar outdoors and music festival audience what cyclocross is all about.

Van Gilder Invades New England
The Elite Women toed the start line with Laura van Gilder hoping to continue her great start to the season; a trio of Ladies First racers: Crystal Anthony, Ann D’ambruoso and Christina Tamilio; New England cyclocross staple Rebecca Wellons (Pedro’s); former New Zealand national champion Linnea Koons (Embrocation Cycling Journal); and Rebecca Blatt (Silver Bull-Central Wheel).

“I knew I wanted to be on the front,” commented van Gilder following the race, “I needed to be able to ride my own lines. These women in New England are just getting stronger and stronger.” With this in mind, van Gilder took the lead from the gun, leading D’ambruoso and Anthony through the first lap. Always taking advantage of the power sections, van Gilder was able to create space behind her and was able to cruise in to victory. As was the case for many racers this weekend, the high-profile regional races last weekend combined with travel to and from CrossVegas left a lot of question marks in van Gilder’s mind, but once she was on course, the questions disappeared. The Ladies First upstart, Crystal Anthony, continued her team’s podium streak by pulling in second behind van Gilder. Not to be outdone, once again, Ann D’ambruoso finished third, further proving that the Ladies First Racing team is not to be underestimated. Rebecca Blatt outdid Christina Tamilio on the line, taking a very solid fourth place in a strong field.

Lindine Catapults Off Front
Justin Lindine took control of the Elite Men’s race early on. “My teammate, Jerome (Townsend) took the holeshot and pinned himself pretty hard, so I sat in for a few minutes early before attacking,” said Lindine. As Townsend began to fade, Lindine was able to bridge up and catapult off of Townsend’s strong early pace to give himself a chance at victory. While Lindine was pushing off the front, the battle for the remainder of the podium was pitched between Dylan McNicholas (Pedro’s) and the recently un-retired Phil Wong (Seaside Cycle/Antero Resources). The two were taking hard pulls and closing the gap to Lindine for several laps before McNicholas picked up a safety pin with his tubular and was forced to ride a flat tire for almost a full lap to the pit.

With McNicholas gone, Wong’s chances of catching Lindine became slim and he instead raced defensively for second. Behind him, McNicholas was doing all he could to regain second position but never got closer than thirty seconds. Further back, race director Adam Myerson (Cycle-Smart) and Justin Spinelli (Richard Sachs-RGM-Radix) did their best to bring back McNicholas, but the Pedro’s rider was fueled by anger and held on for the best UCI result of his career. Myerson was able to pull away from Spinelli on the longer of the two climbs on the course and held the chase off for fourth, with Spinelli fifth. Sixth position went to Manny Goguen (bikereg.com-Joe’s Garage-Scott), who recovered from an early mechanical to have the race of his life, picking up valuable UCI points in the process.

Elite Men’s Results:

Elite Women’s Results: