After another fun year of racing in Prospect Park and with the last race of the official series behind us, we wanted to recap the races and some of our highlights from the Women’s Racing Series in Brooklyn.

The Series

For anyone not familiar, or new racers that are curious about racing in Prospect Park, there is a separate women’s series that runs about 6 races from June - August. The series alternates between Verge and Lucarelli and Castaldi races (the two series held on the same course in Prospect Park), but all leaders jersey competitions for the Women are scored collectively across both.

The races are one open women’s field, but with separate scoring for Cat 4. There is a yellow overall leader’s jersey, green sprint jersey, white and red polka dot QOM jersey, and a Cat 4 leaders jersey. Each race alternates between either two QOM laps or two sprint laps. The points laps take place throughout the race where a flag is waved near the start line indicating whether it’s a sprint (green flag) or QOM (red and white checkered flag). The QOM is at the top of the hill and the sprint is over the finish line, which is near the 3rd street entrance of the park. Even if you’re not going for these jersey competitions, it’s important to be aware of when these laps are happening so you’re not caught on the back foot when the front of the race surges ahead going for the points.

To me, racing in Prospect always feels like a bit of a treat. Maybe it’s the anticipation of waiting till June when the women’s series kicks off, but it seems like others agree because it typically draws a relatively larger women’s field for what is typically these days.

Here are some TBD highlights and anecdotes from each of the races this year.

June 6: Lucarelli & Castaldi

Starters: 26

TBD Teammates: Annie, Sarah, Steph

Average speed: 22.4 mph

Sprint finish or breakaway: Sprint

Race commentary: Living in Manhattan, I always have to remind myself how long it takes to get to Prospect when it’s been a while. I dug into the archives of my Wahoo app to check the length of my last Prospect commute and set my alarm accordingly. For what it’s worth, my PB for the series was a 38:58 commute on July 11th. As for the race, with it being the first Prospect race of the season I was mostly just remembering the rhythm of racing in the park. As always, Steph and Sarah didn’t skip a beat and had stellar and envious positioning during the race. We had an awesome team cheer squad at the top of the hill!

June 13: Verge

Starters: 35

TBD Teammates: Annie, Diane, Hannah, Leah, Steph, Sarah

Average speed: 23.1 mph (though I missed recording the first two laps)

Sprint finish or breakaway: Sprint

Race commentary: We had a strong squad out this week and it also brought out some teammates who captured some great shots of the race during A Saturday of Bike Racing in Brooklyn. After a first race settling in, I was excited for a dynamic race and seeing what I could do in the finish. This was my second year racing in Prospect and last year I wasn’t exactly an active participant in the finish so I was excited for the challenge. I personally find it to be a bit of a tricky finish with the size of the field relative to other races I’ve done, the placement of the final hill leading in, and the relative narrowness of the actual finish (or at least my perception of it). There’s a lot of elements to account for. I had some idea that I might want to go for the Cat 4 jersey this season and was super grateful that that team encouraged and helped me focus on that, including with an awesome team lead out.

July 11: Lucarelli & Castaldi

Starters: 31

TBD Teammates: Annie, Diane, Hannah, Leah, Steph

Average speed: 22.5 mph

Sprint finish or breakaway: Sprint

Race commentary: Debut of the green! As we highlighted We’re Going Green and we are stoked about our new green kit with Castelli. The votes to the “what kit are we wearing tomorrow?” question were unanimous. Hannah had a killer attack in this race, seamlessly jumping away from the field in a perfectly timed attack near the bottom of the park. She was quickly out of sight of the field and stayed away until the QOM. Diane, Leah, and Steph held it down in the field. Leah kept it rolling after the QOM and got a gap with another rider for a stretch, in addition to second in one of the sprint laps. A good day out!

July 18: Verge

This race was unfortunately cancelled due to hazardous air quality from the Canadian wildfires, but in place there is one last women’s field added on the last race date of the year: August 15th.

August 1: Lucarelli & Castaldi

Starters: 27

TBD Teammates: Annie, Diane, Hannah, Lucia, Steph, Sarah

Average speed: 22.8 mph

Sprint finish or breakaway: Sprint

Race commentary: Another strong squad out this week! An attack went very early on the sprint lap and Lucia and Hannah did some monster work to pull things back. Sarah was cursed by the battery gods but heroically managed to pull off the whole race in the little ring. I was in the Cat 4 leaders jersey and the finishing sprint was feeling better each week. One thing that’s fun about park racing is that you can try different things each week with not much to lose. If it doesn’t work out, you can just apply what you learned in the next week. That’s especially true when you’re trying to get the hang of a certain finish.

Photo courtesy of Marco Quezada. Full gallery on the Lucarelli & Castaldi facebook page.

August 8: Verge

Starters: 30

Average speed: 23.2 mph

Sprint finish or breakaway: A break finally sticks. Congrats to Amanda for sticking a solo break.

TBD Teammates: Annie, Diane, Hannah, Steph, Sarah

Race commentary: How could it be August already. I came into the final race with the Cat 4 leaders jersey secured and it was admittedly an unfamiliar territory. I had a really fun time racing with teammates. We had a strong TBD contingent throughout the series and that made it all the more fun. Bike racing is so hard but so fun. It was an awesome summer of racing in Brooklyn but now we pivot….. #crossiscoming.

Congrats to All of the jersey winners!

Yellow Jersey: Clara Warmath

Sprint Jersey: Galen Bolard

QOM: Lucie Vagnerova

Cat 4: Annie Purcell

And finally, some stats for the the nerds

Fastest lap: 8:02 on 8/8 at 25.3 mph

Fastest hill: 1:11 tied on 6/13 and 8/8 at 22.3 mph

Fastest race: 8/8 at 23.2 mph

Teams represented throughout the series: 18. Including: All.Ways Racing and Cycling Club, Automatic Racing, Competitive Edge Racing, Continental Ostro, NYCC Racing p/b Magen Financial, Houlihan Lokey, Dave Jordan Racing, Deep Cut Racing, Jalapeño Cycling, KRT QRT Racing, KruisCX, Pedal Power, Rockland / Talent Cycling, Star Track, Team Solutions Cycling, To Be Determined, United Cycling Women, W.0 Racing.

Age range of riders: 14 - 66

Rider category distribution (based on total appearances throughout the series): Cat 1: 10%, Cat 2: 15%, Cat 3: 39%, Cat 4: 28%, Cat 5: 8%.

Money spent on post race coffee: Better not to check.

Relevant stats based on results per my.raceresults.com.