grant's tomb criterium hosted by columbia university. aka my first road race ever.
so, today was pretty sweet.
i woke up not quite as early as i'd hoped, and started layering before i even got out of bed. i planned that as i was doing laundry last night. i went to whole foods, got a scone, four types of soy products, a vitamin water, and a case of clif bars. i had tea, the scone, most of the soy stuff, and a lot of water for breakfast. i talked to ava, my teammate and racing buddy, and we planned our jersey improvisation since the nyu jerseys aren't here yet (we've really got our shit together, as you can tell). i put air in my tires, packed my bag, taped saran wrap over my three pairs of socks, and headed uptown.
grant's tomb is about 8 miles uptown and upwind, so i took it easy and enjoyed the ride. in case you weren't in town today, the weather was pretty nice, if unseasonably (unfortunately) cold and windy. high around 40 degrees (before windchill), wind from the west-northwest at 15-20 with gusts over 35 mph. but sun! very sunny. lots of sun. i got sunburned, actually. not kidding. who knew, with windchill temperatures below freezing all day, that i could get sunburned? it's a skill i have. i think.
when i was about four blocks away from the course, i passed the police barricades keeping the cars out. i didn't really know what to expect when i got there. as i was cresting the last hill about a block away, though, i was staring straight ahead, not seeing much of anything except empty road. and then they came. the women's pro USCF riders who were in their finals laps. my first time seeing an actual road race pack. they were lined up for the sprint. they were cornering. and they were fast. i bet they were doing at least 20 mph in one of the slowest sections of the course. anyway, that was one of the most idyllic 2-second scenes of my life thusfar. it was one of those "oh, so this is the meaning of life" moments.
they were past before i got to the course itself, so i crossed over to the registration area on the inside of the course. i got registered, pinned, and got some race advice from ryan, our coach/chaperone. i was warming up and taking photos of the men's A race before my race, women's B, when ava finally called to say she was there. we got her registered and pinned and i pointed out some of the tough spots on the course, didn't warm up nearly enough, and then it was time to go.
it was surreal standing on the starting line, everybody clipping and unclipping their pedals, packed in and blatantly staring each other down. we got our instructions and then there were 30 seconds til start. that was the moment i had been so nervous about for so long. then it was over. once the race started, all i had to do was ride my bike. that part was fine. that part was fun. during our neutral lap (the first one's free so that in theory people don't smash into each other scrambling for good placement) there was a crash at the bottom of the steepest hill, and i got caught a few riders behind a girl who went down. i unclipped but didn't hit anyone or anything. i didn't finish, and it was a struggle to stay in contention for as long as i did, but i did the best i could, and i had a lot of fun.
so here are some photos.
this is what a pack looks like.
the men's A field, not in any particular hurry. some of the women's A riders who had just finished their race, including the winner, decided to race for another hour. the pink foot and shorts all the way on the left belong to the women's A winner, who is unimaginably awesome. those girls are sick in the best possible way. also note that there were a few guys wearing shorts instead of tights, despite the below-freezing temperatures.
so this is riverside church. it's really big and pretty and stuff. the course went around it. it doesn't have anything to do with road racing other than that, though.
except look how small josh and ryan look standing under it. well, josh is really short. his bike is tiny and cute. but ryan's pretty tall. i was sitting on the ground after my race, listening to ryan give josh some last-minute advice.
which is where i took this photo of ava and grant's actual tomb, also. after our race, ava and i were talking about how much harder we have to train before the end of the season, and especially before next season, and we hit a natural pause in conversation that turned funny-awkward. it went something like this.
me: "i definitely know what i need to work on when i'm training on my own now."
ava: "yeah, i want to get on a more regular schedule...[pause]...and... i want to ride with... you."
me: [pause] "...i want to ride with... you, too!"
ava: "so let's train together! we can ask ryan for some workouts for two people who race together."
end scene.
it felt like we were in middle school again, just figuring out that we each had a crush on the other but we were too shy to ask each other to the dance. maybe it was only funny to us, but it's my damn story and i can tell it if i want to.
this is alex. alex is a pro cyclist. i don't mean that colloquially, i mean, quite literally, that he rides on a professional team. he is also a first year student, a resident of my building, and best of all, my friend. here he is after his warm-up with the roller-stick to work lactic acid out of the muscles. when ryan saw it, though, he made some smart-ass remark to ava (who used to have one, but lost it at airport security because they insisted it was a weapon; needless to say, it's a sore spot for her), and ava said something about flattening ryan's balls and then chased him around a bit. as you can see, we're a very mature team of cyclists, and we have a lot of respect for our coach's authority.
in fact, here's ryan right after he said, "hey, do you know any cool endo tricks? i know one!" and proceeded to flail around for a little while. he actually pulled it off the second time and i got a pretty good photo of it, but he looks uncoordinated and incompetent in this one, so this is the one that goes on the internet. definitely lives up to his national team legacy. definitely.
well, here ryan is actually looking pretty coach-y. the guy on the left is alex's dad, apparently a former cyclist himself. alex's dad and grandma came for his race, which was super cute. i felt like a little kid around them, though. the two of them were our team dads, if you will.
we watched our guys in the men's B race get started. this is steve. err, the one in the middle, shiny new red helmet. steve will likely read this at some point. hi, steve. (steve's full title is captain steve zissou.)
here's alex at the start. nyu got a shout out before this race (curiously not before our first actual race, the one that ava and i had just done), which was nice. the dude with the mic was also the one who said the same things over and over and over before each race, with little to no effect. he said "hold your line" at least three times to each group and reiterated it at least six other ways; e.g. don't swerve around the two potholes, don't decide to cut in or out suddenly in a turn, and so on. people still didn't hold their lines, though. and so there were crashes.
the yahoo (ryan's term for a clueless asshole) next to steve didn't hold his line in the first turn. he crashed full force into steve, who went into another guy, and the three of them went down. steve's wheel came out like this. oh, well, i guess you can't really tell from this photo. but it was going in about four different directions.
this is steve reenacting part of the crash with another guy who was in the crash. not the one who caused it, though. notice steve's "holding a line" stance, and the other guy's tights ripped open right under his right ass cheek.
steve couldn't finish the race because we didn't have a spare rear wheel. again, we are a really well-organized team. so clockwise from the bottom we have steve's bike (looking decidedly mangled from the crash, though apparently only the wheel was busted), ava's bike, and my bike laying around during the rest of the men's B race. josh was off warming up and/or being goofy, i guess. it was only the five of us riders, although hsiao-wai did come later just to check things out. he was sick and didn't want to race. (ava was sick and she raced; ryan was sick and he raced at 8 am before any of the rest of us had to be there.)
this is my bike. in front of grant's tomb. try to tell me that's not hot. try.
that's it. not a complete picture of what went on, i know, but an overview of sorts.
i'm exhausted from getting up early, being outside all day, and riding. this post took way too much time to put together, but i think it was worth it. plus i'm on duty and i keep getting paged, so i know as soon as i get in bed i will have to do another lockout. such is life.
i woke up not quite as early as i'd hoped, and started layering before i even got out of bed. i planned that as i was doing laundry last night. i went to whole foods, got a scone, four types of soy products, a vitamin water, and a case of clif bars. i had tea, the scone, most of the soy stuff, and a lot of water for breakfast. i talked to ava, my teammate and racing buddy, and we planned our jersey improvisation since the nyu jerseys aren't here yet (we've really got our shit together, as you can tell). i put air in my tires, packed my bag, taped saran wrap over my three pairs of socks, and headed uptown.
grant's tomb is about 8 miles uptown and upwind, so i took it easy and enjoyed the ride. in case you weren't in town today, the weather was pretty nice, if unseasonably (unfortunately) cold and windy. high around 40 degrees (before windchill), wind from the west-northwest at 15-20 with gusts over 35 mph. but sun! very sunny. lots of sun. i got sunburned, actually. not kidding. who knew, with windchill temperatures below freezing all day, that i could get sunburned? it's a skill i have. i think.
when i was about four blocks away from the course, i passed the police barricades keeping the cars out. i didn't really know what to expect when i got there. as i was cresting the last hill about a block away, though, i was staring straight ahead, not seeing much of anything except empty road. and then they came. the women's pro USCF riders who were in their finals laps. my first time seeing an actual road race pack. they were lined up for the sprint. they were cornering. and they were fast. i bet they were doing at least 20 mph in one of the slowest sections of the course. anyway, that was one of the most idyllic 2-second scenes of my life thusfar. it was one of those "oh, so this is the meaning of life" moments.
they were past before i got to the course itself, so i crossed over to the registration area on the inside of the course. i got registered, pinned, and got some race advice from ryan, our coach/chaperone. i was warming up and taking photos of the men's A race before my race, women's B, when ava finally called to say she was there. we got her registered and pinned and i pointed out some of the tough spots on the course, didn't warm up nearly enough, and then it was time to go.
it was surreal standing on the starting line, everybody clipping and unclipping their pedals, packed in and blatantly staring each other down. we got our instructions and then there were 30 seconds til start. that was the moment i had been so nervous about for so long. then it was over. once the race started, all i had to do was ride my bike. that part was fine. that part was fun. during our neutral lap (the first one's free so that in theory people don't smash into each other scrambling for good placement) there was a crash at the bottom of the steepest hill, and i got caught a few riders behind a girl who went down. i unclipped but didn't hit anyone or anything. i didn't finish, and it was a struggle to stay in contention for as long as i did, but i did the best i could, and i had a lot of fun.
so here are some photos.
this is what a pack looks like.
the men's A field, not in any particular hurry. some of the women's A riders who had just finished their race, including the winner, decided to race for another hour. the pink foot and shorts all the way on the left belong to the women's A winner, who is unimaginably awesome. those girls are sick in the best possible way. also note that there were a few guys wearing shorts instead of tights, despite the below-freezing temperatures.
so this is riverside church. it's really big and pretty and stuff. the course went around it. it doesn't have anything to do with road racing other than that, though.
except look how small josh and ryan look standing under it. well, josh is really short. his bike is tiny and cute. but ryan's pretty tall. i was sitting on the ground after my race, listening to ryan give josh some last-minute advice.
which is where i took this photo of ava and grant's actual tomb, also. after our race, ava and i were talking about how much harder we have to train before the end of the season, and especially before next season, and we hit a natural pause in conversation that turned funny-awkward. it went something like this.
me: "i definitely know what i need to work on when i'm training on my own now."
ava: "yeah, i want to get on a more regular schedule...[pause]...and... i want to ride with... you."
me: [pause] "...i want to ride with... you, too!"
ava: "so let's train together! we can ask ryan for some workouts for two people who race together."
end scene.
it felt like we were in middle school again, just figuring out that we each had a crush on the other but we were too shy to ask each other to the dance. maybe it was only funny to us, but it's my damn story and i can tell it if i want to.
this is alex. alex is a pro cyclist. i don't mean that colloquially, i mean, quite literally, that he rides on a professional team. he is also a first year student, a resident of my building, and best of all, my friend. here he is after his warm-up with the roller-stick to work lactic acid out of the muscles. when ryan saw it, though, he made some smart-ass remark to ava (who used to have one, but lost it at airport security because they insisted it was a weapon; needless to say, it's a sore spot for her), and ava said something about flattening ryan's balls and then chased him around a bit. as you can see, we're a very mature team of cyclists, and we have a lot of respect for our coach's authority.
in fact, here's ryan right after he said, "hey, do you know any cool endo tricks? i know one!" and proceeded to flail around for a little while. he actually pulled it off the second time and i got a pretty good photo of it, but he looks uncoordinated and incompetent in this one, so this is the one that goes on the internet. definitely lives up to his national team legacy. definitely.
well, here ryan is actually looking pretty coach-y. the guy on the left is alex's dad, apparently a former cyclist himself. alex's dad and grandma came for his race, which was super cute. i felt like a little kid around them, though. the two of them were our team dads, if you will.
we watched our guys in the men's B race get started. this is steve. err, the one in the middle, shiny new red helmet. steve will likely read this at some point. hi, steve. (steve's full title is captain steve zissou.)
here's alex at the start. nyu got a shout out before this race (curiously not before our first actual race, the one that ava and i had just done), which was nice. the dude with the mic was also the one who said the same things over and over and over before each race, with little to no effect. he said "hold your line" at least three times to each group and reiterated it at least six other ways; e.g. don't swerve around the two potholes, don't decide to cut in or out suddenly in a turn, and so on. people still didn't hold their lines, though. and so there were crashes.
the yahoo (ryan's term for a clueless asshole) next to steve didn't hold his line in the first turn. he crashed full force into steve, who went into another guy, and the three of them went down. steve's wheel came out like this. oh, well, i guess you can't really tell from this photo. but it was going in about four different directions.
this is steve reenacting part of the crash with another guy who was in the crash. not the one who caused it, though. notice steve's "holding a line" stance, and the other guy's tights ripped open right under his right ass cheek.
steve couldn't finish the race because we didn't have a spare rear wheel. again, we are a really well-organized team. so clockwise from the bottom we have steve's bike (looking decidedly mangled from the crash, though apparently only the wheel was busted), ava's bike, and my bike laying around during the rest of the men's B race. josh was off warming up and/or being goofy, i guess. it was only the five of us riders, although hsiao-wai did come later just to check things out. he was sick and didn't want to race. (ava was sick and she raced; ryan was sick and he raced at 8 am before any of the rest of us had to be there.)
this is my bike. in front of grant's tomb. try to tell me that's not hot. try.
that's it. not a complete picture of what went on, i know, but an overview of sorts.
i'm exhausted from getting up early, being outside all day, and riding. this post took way too much time to put together, but i think it was worth it. plus i'm on duty and i keep getting paged, so i know as soon as i get in bed i will have to do another lockout. such is life.