
but some douche bag ran off with the bandanna on my top tube... I hope the bandanna bandit enjoys the smell of sweaty nutz cause the powder wasn't cutting it, thus the bandanna to the rescue! Nutz to the dome s0n, nutz to the dome...
As huggsy all ready pointed out, it was bedlam yesterday at some points of the race. Accidents, angry motorists and fist to cuff action was part of the race and honestly, it made for a damn good race. I mean what's a Orlando Alley Rat Race without that kind of excitement? I happened to come around the corner of the end point right when the 4th place finisher got sucker punched and proceeded to watch all hell break loose. All I kept yelling during the course of the melee was "who's checking people in!" but people seemed to be a tad bit pre-occupied at the moment, go figure... The last person to get a position was Julius @ 5th with Hoylesdead (Patrick) right behind him and I right behind Pat. So if I had to guess my finish, I came in 7th... I wasted a ton of time at the first checkpoint but made it up between the stretch from Dandelion to Kyles Bike shop and then gained more ground from Kyles to Stardust. Knowing the back roads in this area came in really handy and let me make up some serious ground on the leaders without the usual follow the leader types drafting me...
This we do know, Josh Erickson took first and ran a hell of a race. The name of the second place finisher escapes me at the moment and john (with the [ex]beard) came in 3rd. First place womens was Jenny K who finished like 5 minutes after I did. Other than that, I have no clue as to what the placings where because of the prize fight bout that occurred at Fort Mandino.
Some of my highlights from the race:
- Everyone milling around the start point still hungover from the night before. Gatorade and Vitamin Water made a killing that day no doubt.
- Zach and his animal print spandex pants. He looked like a cracked out member of poison
- Greg's wicked burn of Zachs animal print spandex pants. He asked him where he was hiding his cock... For once, Zach didn't have a snappy come back... :)
- the mad sprint from the start to check point 1. there was like 12-15 of us hauling ass down Princeton running lights and passing cars the entire way. We must of easily been doing 25 mph..
- Busting my ass @ the cemetery checkpoint because I couldn't get my foot out of my foot strap. Same thing happened @ critical mass Friday except this time Venice Dave didn't run me over. Pesky foot straps, what can I say....
- The look of bewilderment on peoples faces as racers started coming in to the 7-11 check point. The manifest said we had to go in and buy a snack and it was a madhouse when the all the racers started coming in. Big shout out to the cashiers working as they where especially nice and did their best to get everyone out quickly...
- Hauling ass to Kyles from Dandelion in order to catch up with Andrew and the boys. I got held up @ 7-11 and as a result got separated from the crew. So I pretty much sprinted from 7-11 to Dandelion and then from there to Kyles Bike Shop. Instead of following the main roads, GPS kicked in (Gus Positioning System) and I took the back roads there. Well turns out I passed them in the process and as I was leaving Kyles Bike Shop checkpoint, they were just getting there. I ended up turning on the gas from there and did the same thing from Kyles to Stardust. I was dizzy as all hell when I got to stardust but I passed a lot of people in the process so it was worth it. From there it was just a short run to Nicks house.
- Narrowly missing a head to head collision with Ben when I left stardust. I was haulin' ass out of the 7-11 parking lot next to Stardust heading west on Corrine and Ben was riding against traffic headed east on Corrine, hauling ass was well. We both sort of panicked at first (I think I yelled oh shit) but we both took evasive maneuvers and just clipped each other briefly. Neither of us fell and our bikes where ok. Just made for a mad scary moment for a split second...
- and of course, the Sunday Night Fight at Fort Mandino... 'nuff said...
All in all I had a blast and a big congratulations to Adrien and the volunteers that helped get this bad boy together. As hugs mentioned, it would have been nice to start a bit earlier but the route wasn't long so most finished before it got really dark. I liked the format of the race (no maps) and look forward to some of the other races being planned. From what I heard, there's some good stuff planned for March so keep your peepers open...
Next stop, St Augustine on Feb 9th. 407 represent!
ez!