"The 33"-Road Bike Racing - Philly Phlyer Collegiate Race Weekend.

Hey I was just wondering who all came out to our weekend and what you thought! We had a new record of 530 collegiate racers from both the ACC and ECCC, amazing weather and what appeared to be a good time.

I know a few of the guys and gals on here were planning on attending, so what did you think? I go to Drexel and our race directors along with UPenn put in TONS of hours making this thing happen so we'd love to hear what you thought.

the floor is open...

-Dan
Drexel 09'

The thing that helped me out the most was the huge printout of the flyer taped to the registration table. In all the ACCC races I've done, I've never seen that, and it works so much better than having people reference their own booklet of info, or asking around.

I didn't get a chance to do much of the roadrace. I flatted 3 min in. In fact, 40% of our racers in the road races flatted out. Without a wheel truck none of us could do much of anything. That was probably a logistical issue, but it made it pretty frustrating. The field rode by me 2 times before a support crew was able to show up, which made me a little envious.

Putting the TTT and Crit on the same day on sunday really made it hard on our team. Waking up at 6am after a road race the previous day isn't too bad (especially for me, after that race), but we had to be at the line for the TTTs, and then a late afternoon crit that ran until almost the evening. After getting packed up, we didn't leave Philly until 5pm, and with traffic we didn't get home until 2 a.m.

Those are just little things though. The course locations, Host city, and people were all great, and I'd come back for it again.

I had a great time, and it was an incredible introduction to bike racing. The fact that I won in my first race may bias my opinion (and I don't have much to compare to, except swim meets) but I loved the atmosphere and things seemed well run and everyone was extremely collegial. My only suggestion for next year is to either move the start/finish closer to where everyone was parked/warming up/hanging out or to otherwise arrange for the PA to be heard in that area (wiring a speaker or something would be enough). It was often difficult if not impossible to hear the announcer from the parking lot, though I still made my races on time and everything.

My thanks to the hosting schools, you put on an excellent event and are at least in part responsible for totally hooking me into bike racing. Hopefully I'll be back next year, challenging in a different category.

y'all did an amazing job, congratulations : ). i thought the whole thing was really well done, and the start/finish going through that civil war monument looked pretty epic.

I agree about the TTT/Crit on the same day thing. It was a pain waking up at 6am (5am, really, thanks to daylight saving time), doing the TTT (which I flatted out of), then the crit. A tough weekend for sure.

My crit went horribly, horribly wrong. I was in the Mens C, Division II race, and was in third wheel for a good bit of the race. After taking my pull, I peeled off and kept trying to get back in line but nobody would let me in. NOBODY. SO what happened? I went OTB. After trying to TT back to the pack, the officials pulled me. SUcks.