weekend recap: brooklyn racing, training, gimbel's murder, and HAM!

yet another action packed episode of Alliwannadoisbicycle!

Let's try a blog bullet form. Hopefully it'll make things clean and easy. Although that's what they said about oxy clean, and that was a piece on as-seen-on-tv garbage. Billy Mayes, you should be ashamed of yourself.

-Raced in the Spring series race in prospect park on Saturday. it was the first time I've ridden, let alone raced in prospect, so it was quite an experience. I think the course suits me better than Central park, since it's flatter. However, I'm super familiar with central park, and have raced more there. PP is a bit narrow at times, and I really should go and scope out the strategic sprint locations 2 or 300 meters before the finish. it was SUPER cold Saturday morning- around 34 degrees, which is about as low as i'll go for road racing (cyclocross is a different story). Thank god for Greyhound juice. I decided to lay low for most of the race, but ended up wasting a bit of energy here and there. a 3 man break got away and stayed away. ah, well. I managed to come in the top 15 or so in a field of about 40. satisfactory. next PP race will be better, especially if we have more teammates out.



-Chad and I then went on a post-race training/suffering ride. Why we keep doing these, i don't know. We went up to Nyack and had our customary Muffins. by the way, the muffins are even better if you ask them to toast them on the pannini press first. Paris thinks that's hot.

-we met up with some of the NYVelocity Ladies and rode back with them. a sweet tailwind made our pace-lining all the swifter. it also warmed up a bit at the end of the ride, which was awesome.

-Sunday was quite the humbling experience. Chad and I met up with a few other hearty teammates and we went to go do the Gimbel's ride. Well, not to make excuses (ok, to totally make excuses), Saturday was rough on my legs, and Chad was even worse off after also having raced Sunday morning (crazy man). the gimbel's ride is a fast, fast ride. it starts in Yonkers and rolls through Greenwhich CT. I have no idea where it ends. it was all fine in the flats, but the ex pros and the cat 1's generally decide on the pace. the minute the short, punchy hills started, i knew i was in trouble. Chad and I ended up getting dropped. We courageously chased back the pack with 2 other guys, but the minute another hill hit, they were gone. we wasted so much energy catching up that we had nothing left once another climb hit. Ah, well.

-once we got dropped, we realized we were stuck in Greenwhich. and had no idea where we were. Then we both bonked. I bonked pretty hard, which was majorly sucky. we eventually found a Panera in Portchester and stuffed ourselves stupid. Then we took the metro north back. Ha.

-Proceeded to go home, pass out, and eat tons of Easter Ham. Salvatore Commesso would be proud.


-Big race is coming up next weekend. The Battenkill-Roubaix. the Hell of the North(east). Jay might be there as well. It's going to be huge. and epic. and I'm going to die.

-55 miles, half of which is unpaved. about 4,700 feet of vertical climbing.
I'm bringing my 13-26 cassette, my hincapie sunglasses, and a sixer of Chimay (as a post race reward/celebration/consolation prize), and holding on for dear life. I'll probably get dropped like Michael Jackson's baby. Ah well. Time to suffer!


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here's the elevation profile:



Oye Vei. Happy Passover. That's just not Kosher!