patentcad

So last night the wind is literally pounding my house @ 50mph, and I'm wondering if this whole bike racing thing @ 6:30AM Sunday morning is such a good idea. I go to bed early, and the wind rattling wakes me up every couple of hours. By 3:45AM when I get up, it has calmed down a bit, so I decide what the hell. But it's still windy as hell, < 30ºF. I'm driving to Manhattan thinking 'I must be insane, why the F am I doing this?' and almost turn the car around once or twice. But once I'm in Paramus, I figure I came this far. I park on E. 82nd St. a Frisbee throw from the Metropolitan Museum of Art. I go register. It's cold, but not nearly as windy in Central Park. But the bathrooms are locked. D'oh. I'm sure the employee just didn't set his clocks ahead this AM. I peed behind the construction trailer.

The race starts, today they cut off the downhill/uphill @ 110th Street because of ice on the course. That makes for two high speed turns where you can get accordian-ed off the back pretty good. Anthony Van Dunk, the race organizer, says 'you might want to take it easy on the first lap, it's been a long time since we've done this route'. Right Anthony. The first lap is ballistic, like they lit the friggin rockets under Wiley Coyote's ass, we go through those slightly downhill turns @ 30+mph.

Long story short: 3 man break up the road with a lap to go with 10-15 secs. on the field, they got bridged to by about 10 guys, my team mates got 1-2. No thanks to me. At one point my team captain was exhorting me to go to the front to help them chase, I tried, a combination of not being able to move up (boxed out) and not having the snot prevented me. But this time I did finish more mid-pack, felt stronger on the last two laps, only had one 'if they accelerate like that again I may be toast' moments in the whole race.

No crashes, very positive experience. Started out with total pre-dawn dread (the wind was atrocious) ended up being a better race than last week. Amazingly, despite the 30mph winds, you could have passed around a joint on the starting line. Considering the fact that this was Central Park it was rather disappointing nobody was. Oh well. I even got yelled at for not being at the front on the last lap by my team mate and pal Gary (who won the race). It just doesn't get better than that.

+ another 25 miles afterwards/portion of the Nyack Ride. Good workout for early March. Lots of fast miles. I think I'm getting faster and leaner. I'm not getting any friggin younger, that's for sure. I do suck at this sport (never forget the Self Loathing).

ericcox

Well done, Pcad. You are an inspiration to self-loathing bike weenies everywhere.

Greg180

Nice report. A few more 3:45 am weekends and your going to become even more delusional.

patentcad

Correct.

botto 

so they took the short cut at around 100th street, where the Central Park Jogger was *****?

patentcad

That's the general area. Left turn a few hundred meters after the start of the downhill towards the turnaround before the 110th St. hill. Then it's a few hundred meters through there to the other side, cuts off the hill. The laps were more like 5 miles than 6 miles due to this change. But no rapes today. The only thing that got violated was the jogger's lane.

botto 

weird that they raced on that road.

i used to take it when i was doing recovery rides, to skip out on the hill.

oh yeah... well done pcaddy. next week get your ass up the the front, and work.

Pablo.

patentcad

That of course is always the plan. It would be much more achievable if you could contact some of your old NY pals (who are no doubt in my race) and tell them to kindly slow the F down.

Jynx

LOL You have a way with words.

botto 

then they wouldn't be able to shake off the freds.

patentcad

They didn't. Pcad finished mid-pack.

patentcad

In fact, you're in CT now, come down next Sunday and tell them in person b.

Homebrew01

I thought he was back in Europe ?

patentcad

It says 'temporarily repatriated' under his avatar, that implies Stateside.

patentcad

By the way, considering recent events in NY City, perhaps botto's 'terrorist bicycle' thread wasn't such a great idea. Or perhaps that's what inspired the topic.

jkizzle

interesting, botto being repatriated and all......

botto 

stateside, but far, far from NYC.

Jynx

Tennessee right?

Greg180

The sad thing is where you are repatriated to those bumper stickers are cool! God Bless the Southern United States of America!

patentcad

Thank God there are no idiots in the northeast.

Snuffleupagus

Not cool.

Not at all...in fact I'd say they'd garner a less favorable response here than in many other areas of the country.

patentcad

I would agree. Of course Parochialism knows no bounds. New York is often no different, just more populous with higher income pinheads.

Greg180

Yes thank "God" and our socially engineered intelligence that recognizes our superiority.

merckx89

Nice race. If you keep on moving up in the placing every week as much as last to this, you'll be winning in no time.