Cranston Masters Maccabiah Games

Practice has certainly paid dividends for Pacific Palisades resident David Cranston, who recently returned from the Maccabiah Games in Israel. An environmental attorney at Greenberg Gusker in Century City, Cranston was the only athlete in the 50-and-over age division from the United States to complete the road race. To prepare, he rode the streets of Pacific Palisades and Los Angeles, even pedaling to and from work as part of his training. “The road race was in Ashdod’a beautiful sweeping seven kilometers out and back,” Cranston said. “We had all heard the course was flat but it wasn’t. It finished with a steep but relatively short climb (a few hundred meters) and it was very windy and hot. We also learned that the 30s, 40s, and 50s age groups were all racing together. All the strategizing went out the window.” Cranston tried to stay near the front of the pack for the first few laps but ran into trouble on the climb of the third lap when his bike chain started slipping between the small and big chaining and by the time he corrected the problem he had lost ground. “Our three-man chase group turned into eight and we worked very hard to get back to the front group,” Cranston recalled. “We finally caught the pack with about five laps to go. Working together with riders from seven different countries to catch the pack was one of the best parts. The other great part was having my family and other American spectators cheering us on at the turn-around at the top of the climb.” With three laps to go, Cranston had more problems when his chain dropped and it took a few seconds too long to re-engage it, leaving him a significant gap going into a heavy headwind. “I rode as hard as I could but was eventually caught by an eight-man group that I finished the race with, well ahead of them on the sprint up the hill,” Cranston said. “When it was over I just lay on the ground. It was the hardest and fastest race I’d ever done. We averaged 23 miles per hour and given the hills, length, wind and small groups of riders it was pretty fast. I was 10th in my age group and about middle of the pack among all the masters categories. I was elated just to have been able to participate and compete with some of the best cyclists in the world.”