Practice Makes Perfect: Snow and Ice No Match for Carter in Juniors Men 15-16

by David Mable

Blasting down the snow-covered starting straight-away, Alex Morton (Cannondale/Cyclocrossworld/Saint Clair, MI) grabbed the early lead into the first corner of the Junior Men 15-16 race in Hartford.

Alex Morton (Cannondale/Cyclocrossworld) leads the charge and takes the holeshot in the Junior Men 15-16 race. © D. Mable / Cyclocross Magazine

Climbing through the field, Nick Carter (Northstar Development Cycling/Minneapolis, MN) moved into the lead after the big climb up Bonk Breaker hill, and never looked back.

Nick Carter (Northstar Development Cycling) navigates through lapped traffic in the final laps. © D. Mable / Cyclocross Magazine

“I noticed on the first lap that everyone was falling down,” said Carter. “Our State Championship race was cold like this so I just thought, oh, well this will probably play to my strengths. I only slipped a couple of times. It went pretty good.”

Once in the lead, Carter focused on riding smooth and not making mistakes, confident of his ability to ride in the snow after practicing this winter in his home state of Minnesota.

Torin Bickmore (Boulder Junior Cycling) clears the barriers one last time. © D. Mable / Cyclocross Magazine

“I just tried to race smooth and not to mess up,” he said. “I had people telling me how far ahead I was so I kept it slow and tried not to fall.”

“Before I came out here [to Hartford] we had half a foot of snow back in Minnesota. I just started riding around the parks seeing how it would feel when it’s slippery and it went pretty well. I came out there and rode the course right before the call-ups to see how it was and it was definitely a lot slipperier than it was before. But I think had I not ridden it [in these conditions], I would not have done as well.”

Dillon McNeil (Trek Cyclocross Collective) chases the lead three while spectators cheer. © D. Mable / Cyclocross Magazine

Behind Carter, in ever-changing conditions, a tight race for the rest of the podium spots was taking place between teammates Torin Bickmore (Boulder Junior Cycling/Longmont, CO) and Oliver Howson (Boulder Junior Cycling/Boulder, CO), as well as Dillon McNeil (Trek Cyclocross Collective/Bellevue, NE), Tyler Reynolds (Trek Cyclocross Collective/Pella, IA) and Alex Morton.

“Yeah, we were riding on an ice rink and the course was changing from the very start of the race, because it was snowing the whole race,” said Bickmore. “Each lap, we would come around and different areas would be covered in snow. So you could easily miss [spotting] an ice spot and slide out your front wheel.”

Torin Bickmore (Boulder Junior Cycling) leads Dillon McNeil (Trek Cyclocross Collective) through a wooded section. © D. Mable / Cyclocross Magazine

Into the last lap, as Carter continued to lead, lapped traffic made it challenging to vie for podium spots.

“It was a close one and we had lapped traffic, so it was pretty hard to battle throughout the whole lap,” said Bickmore. “There were three of us within just a few seconds for the whole race.”

Despite the shuffling of the top contenders in the final lap, due largely to the icy conditions and pure luck (good or bad), Carter maintained his lead, taking the stars and stripes jersey. Behind him Bickmore took silver and his teammate Howson grabbed bronze.

When asked how he plans to celebrate, Carter was clear.

“I’m gonna sleep and have some ice cream!”

2017 CX National Championships Hartford Day 5 Results Juniors Men 15-16