So the actual race:
Have a look on the website for course description, etc. Its a six or seven or eight turn beast with quite a decent rise out of the last few corners into a false flat finish. After a while, you lose count of how many corners there are.
From years past, I've learned that of all races, this one absolutely demands you be at the front all the time. When you squeeze 100 sketchball 3s and 4s onto narrow streets and alleys, people get popped like mad. There's a staging area on the back of the course and we roll to the start/finish about five minutes before the start. The instructions included the request to "parade, at 10 mph, wave to the crowd" so as to make them feel a part of it. These instructions were most definitely NOT followed. People basically went full gas to get to the start line . . . so dumb.
At least I knew the course fairly well so knew to be on the outside through most of the turns. It took a few laps to move up to the front, I took about a 2 lap flyer off the front then shut down the usual Jenksster-style stupid racing and sat in for the final 10 laps or so. There were multiple nasty crashes, I stayed upright the whole time, though came close to losing my front wheel on the white painted stripes once.
The last lap was sketchy, as expected. I had decent but not great position, maybe top 10 going into the tight and technical portion when I got nudged out and came within centimeters of hitting hay bales. I lost about 10 spots and could only make up a few in the finish that was absolutely tailor-made for me . . . managed to come around about ten guys through the finishing straight for a 7th place finish. Not a great result, but encouraging due to the powerful burst I put in to come around so many in the finish.
We quickly packed up and went home to shower and then headed back for the pro race. I stopped by the prize tent to pick up my quite generous $55 winnings and promptly gave half of that away for the crowd prime for the pro race (it was a $1300 prime!!). The pro race was sweet . . . though we pretty much missed the *real* race part, when a break of six, including Navigators' Kyle Wamsley and defending champion Hilton Clarke went away within the first fifteen minutes. Still, they were flying even when the break lapped the field. Whitey hung in there, looking really strong the whole time and may have even finished in the money (Top 25). I screamed at him and Myerson, though not as hard as I scream at karaoke.
They rung the bell for the field with three to go and we saw a pretty decent sprint and then, with two to go and the breakmates all on their own, it was pretty obvious who was going to win. Hilton Clarke crossed the line arms raised with at least a bike-length and a half for his second win in as many years at Rochester.
In the write-up in the paper the following day, all the pros that were interviewed had nothing but great things to say about the course, the promotion and the 30,000+ crowd. All in all, a great race full of awesomeness.
Showing posts with label rochester. Show all posts
Showing posts with label rochester. Show all posts
Sunday, June 24, 2007
Raaaaaaaaachester - The Experience
Please note that if you are looking for race details, they'll be included in a separate post. For now, this post will capture all the awesomeness that was non-racing of my weekend in Rochester.
The race wasn't until 6pm so I had a lot of time to kill.
The day started off great with a solid breakfast of bagels and cream cheese with my mom and sister. We spent the late morning watching a few episodes of The Wonder Years. Man what a great program.
Early in the afternoon, we decided to go shopping at Mentality in the Village of Pittsford. Mentality is the place to shop for designer men's clothing in all of New York (outside of Manhattan). It was a little chilly in Rochester this weekend so I wanted to pick up something with long sleeves, either a Spring jacket (hopefully on sale since it is out of season) or a hoodie of some sort (same, although hoodies are never really out of season). I ended up finding a sweet reversible and oh-so-comfy zip up hoodie. The denim bar at Mentality is definitely its main attraction. Citizens of Humanity, Seven for all Mankind, Paper Denim & Cloth, Juicy Couture, Rock and Republic, True Religion . . . you name it, they have it. I probably tried on eight pairs of jeans . . . I was looking for a very light wash and found the perfect pair in a semi-destroyed pair of Paper Denims, unfortunately they only had them in 31 and I just couldn't bring myself to buy such a loose pair of jeans . . . which brings me to a pair of Rock and Republic jeans I tried on. Now, much has been made of my massive quads (mostly by myself, but who's counting?) but this was honestly ridiculous. The waist of the jeans was fine, or would have been fine, if I had been able to get them high enough to get them around my waist. As we all know, tight jeans are important and give you the must super of superhuman powers, but this was beyond anything that was called for. Anyways, I ended up settling on a single pair of Kasils, my first ever pair of dark jeans, that I was on the fence about until I just slightly folded the cuff up and decided they were awesome.
So, having bought an awesome new pair of tight jeans, I was looking good as far as the necessary pre-race prep (i.e. I had a sweet pair of tight, not the tightest but still tight, jeans going into an important race). I got down to the course quite early, had a chat with Matty White of Fiordifrutta, did some real honest-to-goodness warming up (I hate warming up) and then did my thing (see The Race post).
After the Pro race, I took the family home and met up with a old friend from high school at her apartment on East Ave (a really nice, artsy, collegial and happening area of town) to catch up. We ended up going to The Old Toad, a place I've been only twice before. I have to rate it as the best pub in Rochester and maybe the best bar in Rochester, period. Read the RocWiki entry for some details on the staff. Around 1am, as I was ordering some more pints, a guy on the corner of the bar started talking to us, asking us where we're from. When we told him we grew up in Rochester, he belts out "Raaaaaaaaaaaachester" in a deep, throaty, rumbling kind of way, imitating yet somewhat exaggerating the awful nasal Rochestarian accent. Turns out he was from England, Portsmouth, actually (or, as he said, "Por-muf") and was one of the staff though not working that night. The combination of:
1. Him being hammered
2. Us doing our best Rochester accents
3. Also us trying to do our best British accents . . .
4. . . . which then morphed into Aussie/Kiwi accents
All resulted in him ordering shot after shot after pint after pint for us (no charge) and Good Times Were Had By All. And so ended an incredible day of food, shopping, racing and drinking.
The race wasn't until 6pm so I had a lot of time to kill.
The day started off great with a solid breakfast of bagels and cream cheese with my mom and sister. We spent the late morning watching a few episodes of The Wonder Years. Man what a great program.
Early in the afternoon, we decided to go shopping at Mentality in the Village of Pittsford. Mentality is the place to shop for designer men's clothing in all of New York (outside of Manhattan). It was a little chilly in Rochester this weekend so I wanted to pick up something with long sleeves, either a Spring jacket (hopefully on sale since it is out of season) or a hoodie of some sort (same, although hoodies are never really out of season). I ended up finding a sweet reversible and oh-so-comfy zip up hoodie. The denim bar at Mentality is definitely its main attraction. Citizens of Humanity, Seven for all Mankind, Paper Denim & Cloth, Juicy Couture, Rock and Republic, True Religion . . . you name it, they have it. I probably tried on eight pairs of jeans . . . I was looking for a very light wash and found the perfect pair in a semi-destroyed pair of Paper Denims, unfortunately they only had them in 31 and I just couldn't bring myself to buy such a loose pair of jeans . . . which brings me to a pair of Rock and Republic jeans I tried on. Now, much has been made of my massive quads (mostly by myself, but who's counting?) but this was honestly ridiculous. The waist of the jeans was fine, or would have been fine, if I had been able to get them high enough to get them around my waist. As we all know, tight jeans are important and give you the must super of superhuman powers, but this was beyond anything that was called for. Anyways, I ended up settling on a single pair of Kasils, my first ever pair of dark jeans, that I was on the fence about until I just slightly folded the cuff up and decided they were awesome.
So, having bought an awesome new pair of tight jeans, I was looking good as far as the necessary pre-race prep (i.e. I had a sweet pair of tight, not the tightest but still tight, jeans going into an important race). I got down to the course quite early, had a chat with Matty White of Fiordifrutta, did some real honest-to-goodness warming up (I hate warming up) and then did my thing (see The Race post).
After the Pro race, I took the family home and met up with a old friend from high school at her apartment on East Ave (a really nice, artsy, collegial and happening area of town) to catch up. We ended up going to The Old Toad, a place I've been only twice before. I have to rate it as the best pub in Rochester and maybe the best bar in Rochester, period. Read the RocWiki entry for some details on the staff. Around 1am, as I was ordering some more pints, a guy on the corner of the bar started talking to us, asking us where we're from. When we told him we grew up in Rochester, he belts out "Raaaaaaaaaaaachester" in a deep, throaty, rumbling kind of way, imitating yet somewhat exaggerating the awful nasal Rochestarian accent. Turns out he was from England, Portsmouth, actually (or, as he said, "Por-muf") and was one of the staff though not working that night. The combination of:
1. Him being hammered
2. Us doing our best Rochester accents
3. Also us trying to do our best British accents . . .
4. . . . which then morphed into Aussie/Kiwi accents
All resulted in him ordering shot after shot after pint after pint for us (no charge) and Good Times Were Had By All. And so ended an incredible day of food, shopping, racing and drinking.
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