Todd Richards, of Round Pond, and teammates Brian Wedge of Harpswell and Matt O’Donnell of Pittston, won the Southern Maine Cycling Club’s Scarborough Crit Series. The trio competed in the series on Sunday mornings for eight straight weeks, and raced against other much larger sponsored teams, such as Southern Maine Cycling Club, Portland Velo Club, Bikeman and others, Richards said.
The races were held at the Scarborough Industrial Park and consisted of 12 laps on a 1.2 mile oval. Riders were awarded points for their placement, 8 points for first, 6 points for second, etc. Points of any rider within a team count towards the team’s final total. A race typically contained 20-30 riders.
Richards and company scored 38 points, dominating the competition. The second place team scored seven points.
“Cycling is truly a team sport, since a rider drafting another saves up to 40 percent of his energy,” Richards said. “Tactics play out as riders protect teammates so they can conserve energy for their moment of an attack. We succeeded immensely because we carefully calculated our tactics before each race, accounting for weather conditions, previous experience, and each of our own personal abilities. We arrived each Sunday with a pre-determined plan.”