Brought to you by 407fixedgear roving reporter Julius...
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The race was nuts. Nearly 26 miles from downtown St Pete (behind State Theater), to southside St. Pete, across to the beach, up to Treasure Island, than back over to Emerald Bar downtown. Before the race, we had a mini Bike Polo Tourney. Orlando one the first round against a St Pete/Tampa/Sarasota Team, but we lost a best out of three against St. Pete. The tournament was fairly short, but it was a nice warm-up for a race, and only minimal bike fatalities. Plus, playing with a crowd is always fun. We then headed over to the starting line. No run to the bikes like usual alleycats (which I actually preferred), just a sprint to beat the oncoming traffic, complete with the cop car a block up who must have been wondering WTF is going on, then responding by doing nothing at all. The race was really nice with the night breeze with a nice stretch along the beach complete with drunk tourists. The checkpoints were just signatures (in proper FFGPS fashion), with the second to the last one being pretty tricky. The address was written on the manifest, but the directions were a bit misleading. There were bridges we had to pass going over and back from the bridge, but nothing too bad (thanks goodness).
Some highlights:
- Apparently Eric and some other guys got into a scuffle that afternoon, I don't remember the full story, but U-lock justice was involved, the bad guy ended up in the back seat of a cop car, and Eric had a tampon up his nose after Bike Polo to stop the bleeding
- A Rays game was the same night, followed by a performance of MC Hammer
- Pete gave Kevin, Dallas, and I an intimate lesson in pre-race lubrication (... I'll leave it at that)
- Riding with the Biking Viking the entire race (first out of town!), Kevin and I would like to think we helped out a lot with that
- The No Bikes sign right before the Treasure Island causeway
- Getting lost and luckily getting helped out with St Pete peeps on the third checkpoint, riding around in some neighborhood in the dark yelling "checkpoint!" is always fun
- Riding the last leg with Carol and the St. Pete crew then hearing "oh shit, that's a girl" and watching her zoom past to defend her first girl position (Carol got first girl)
- Jeremy for doing the right thing and giving up the first out of town prize (he missed a checkpoint ... he gave up a new wheelset!)
- Being second to last to Pete in Foot Down (come on, what do you seriously expect would happen?)
There's plenty of other things, but these are the only I can remember right now. Also, thanks for pushing it back so us out of towners didn't miss any of the action. And thanks to Corey for running the a great race. Lastly, this is only slightly bike related, but I have a sweet tan line across my forehead from wearing my bike helmet.
Juls
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4 comments:
fucking sweet guys way to rep orlando! i'm sorry i missed out. sounds like an awesome time though.i'll see you all when i get back.
Oh yeah, everyone misses Metha. They kept asking about you and the rest of the Orlando peeps.
Also, thanks Kevin for waiting up for me when I got a bit winded. It totally helped.
what a great race. so much fun all haha special thanks to mikey p. for being my drafting buddy. all of thoses bridges were killer on the thighs but nothing to to badd. Can't wait till the next race. hopefull i wont miss a checkpoint.
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