dpnation
chrisrakWe’ve updated our look for the 2009-2010 season:
This change looks to improve upon kit wear in inclement weather. We will always look back on White Lightning fondly, though.
Filed under: road racing | Tags: Amanda, Chelsea, Chris, collegiate cycling, Dana, ECCC, Jaime, Penn State
So the grand finale took place at State College, PA for the ECCC Championships. In our most lopsided showing yet, four ladies (Amanda, Chelsea, Dana & Jaime) and Chris made the long haul to Penn State. Big Pimpin, indeed. Goal for the weekend: don’t draft off Delaware.
Saturday can generally be considered a bust. We should’ve taken a hint when Google Maps and Garmin had no idea that I-99 was a completely new highway with no exits. Chris’ bad luck continued when another rider took out him and a handful of other D riders, and to top things off, the carbon broke. RIP, Barbara Anne.
The women’s road race had less carnage but a showing of EPIC stupidity. A truck decided to park itself in front of the finish line while racers were sprinting in. When you’re flying in at 25+ and trying to beat others to the line, the last thing you want to see is a PARKED TRUCK in the middle of the road (and a yellow line rule forcefully in effect). I had to hit the brakes and lost out on what would have been an awesome sprint showdown.
It’d be one thing if I was the 50th person coming in, by myself, and traffic was back on the roads. This was the TOP TEN. In the championship race. Absolutely unacceptable. Why no officials or anyone in the area made it get out of the way is beyond me. To top things off, when the truck finally moved, they gave me the finger as they went by. You know, cause I haven’t been busting my butt for the last hour and you didn’t just ruin my sprint finish, ability to place higher and last cycling race ever, I was clearly in the wrong. You stay classy, Penn State. Epic. Fail. [/rant]
Chelsea and Amanda in the Women's B Crit
With BA out of commission, Chris took up the role as team photographer and man-servant for the Women’s B’s in Sunday’s crit. With crappy staging, the race was almost over before it started. A bunch of us got stuck behind people who haven’t figured out how to clip in yet, and in typical Women’s B fashion, the front part took off from the start.
The course itself was fun and fast but difficult to bridge a significant setback from the start. There was even some pacelining in Women’s B!? One thing we still haven’t figured out yet, is when you are switching off on pulls, if you jump back in the middle rather than go to the back of the group, the people in the back aren’t ever going to make it to the front to pull. People are more than happy to pull, but you gotta let them get up there to do it.
My chase group finally got in sight of the front group of 5 with two laps to go, but it was still too far to bridge, so we had our own sprint finish (sans truck) and I got 7th. Which, for the record, means that I’ve finished this season with no crashes (albeit two close calls) or broken bones. VICTORY!
Back to reality: finals, projects, pending unemployment..
Also: this is unrelated.. but after perusing the final standings of the ECCC, I’m confused how a girl from Kutztown scores points in Women’s A in Columbia Crit (10th) then won the Philly RR in Women’s B a couple weeks later? How did she get to downgrade after scoring points in A’s? Or more importantly, why the sandbagging?
Linkage:
Women’s B Crit pics
Results – Road Race, Crit, Overall ECCC standings
And don’t forget to vote in the ECCC end of the season survey
Not sure when or where the end of season gathering is but I vote Thursday. At somewhere that isn’t my apartment.
-Dana
Filed under: road racing | Tags: Andrew, bacon, BC, Boston, BU, Chris, Dana, ECCC, Harvard, Johnny Appleseed, Karl, MIT, Penn State, Pitt, The Office, Wachusetts
This past weekend we had our quasi local race, the Beanpot X-Pot 3-D, hosted by our neighbors across the river, MIT. In case you were ever wondering where Westminster, MA is (we weren’t), it’s about an hour away from the Bean. An area known for Johnny Appleseed, Crackers and BACON ST!
I'm moving here. I don't even know where here is.
There was some amazing weather (80+ both days) that resulted in a rash of farmers tans and/or sunburns.The road race took us up by the Wachusetts mountain ski area (x4) and yikes that was pretty brutal. Oh, and just to echo Joe Kopena’s post on taking hands off handlebars, there’s really no need for anyone to ride half the road race with their hands off the bars. Good for you, you can ride with no hands. But do your yoga stretches some other time and away from a whole group of riders in the middle of a race.
Andrew limbers up for his race
Sunday’s crit had fewer ski mountains but sketchy turns aplenty (just ask our Rubber Side Down-elect Chris about that). In the Women’s B crit, someone decided it would be great to crash out on the first lap. Fortunately, I was able to come to a screeching halt before running over the downed rider and Sweet Baby Rids and I escaped for the most part unscathed. Very messily I got my chain back on (white kits are not great in times like these) and headed to the pit to get my free lap. As 3 other B riders and I waited to get put back in, a very astute bystander observed that the 4 free lappers represented all the Boston schools. Yup, Harvard, MIT, BU and BC in attendance — which must go down in ECCC history. Our legacy went was immortalized on said person’s camera, if only I knew who that was.
Women's B Crit
It was a great weekend for pointage for the White Lightning from Chestnut Hill:
Andrew – 3rd in Men’s C crit (13 points), 1 prime point
Karl – 13th in Men’s C crit, 8th in road race (5 points)
Dana – 2nd in Women’s B crit (35 points), 2 prime points, 7th in road race (21 points)
Next weekend we’re taking the epic 7.5 hour road trip to State College, PA for the grand finale (now we’ll know how Pitt feels every weekend). According to Google Maps, we’re headed right through Scranton. I hope we can stop to take a tour of Dunder Mifflin.
Filed under: road racing | Tags: Arjun, Dana, General, Hoots, Joe Kopena, Karl, L'Eford Du Nord, Otter, People's Champ
By Chris
So this race report is incredibly late but I just got my computer back, it died and took all my files and what not with it last week. This was very unfortunate because I loved the Lux et Velocitas and really wanted to write a rave review but I guess that won’t happen. So half the Cycleagles got an earlyish start on friday, we had a near peacup experience before finally arriving in White River Junction. Once there we decided that our bike riding skills would probably best translate into frisbee, so instead of pre-riding the course to now what we were up against we threw the disc around. Here we learned that the guys can only look athletic when no one is watching, J-pod has some sick skills and Hoots should stick to serving hot wings. Eventually with the girls calling on their cheerleader background started doing some crazy gymnastic things which made The Critter try to mimic them and fail horrible and almost injury himself and those around him. This lead us to call it quits. After some food at Molly’s we headed back to the ol’ motel to meet up with the rest of the team and slept.
We got to wake up late due to being weak sauce again this weekend not having a TTTeam. While at breakfast we met up with an ultimate frisbee team and the Critter and I, confident from our warm up yesterday challenged them to a match. I guess they were scared of our shaved legs and boyish charm because the match never happened or maybe it was because we never truly verbalized the challenge. Our first race off was Men’s D with Otterand The General. The race was strung out from the beginning, which made a bad staging position difficult to make up. Otter and The General worked hard to do so for most of the race. The General caught on to the pack and worked hard to get to 7th wheel and thought he was in good position but so crazyness happened in the death turn and unfortunately an Army rider found himself on the ground and then found himself run over by The General. I would like to take this time to apologize both to the rider whom I fell on top of and the people around who may have heard some inappropriate language out of me. Unfortunately I could not finish the race after the crash and even worse Otter stopped his race to help me out, thats what I call a teammate.
Next up our Men’s C field hit the road, The Critter and Andrew looked good the first few laps until Andrew came barrelleling down the finish straight pointing towards his crotch. His seat had come loose and made it impossible to continue to ride luckily he got it fixed and got back in the race. The Critter continued to look strong through out the race even picking up a prime point. In the end Karl ended with and 11th place finish and Andrew finished 54th but had picked up a few prime points earlier in the race. The Critter after the race said “Back to racing, finally back”, showing his enthusiasm to be back to his competitive ways in C’s after a few lackluster weekends.
Our final race of the day also proved to be our most exciting. Our large Women’s B field were raring to go and right form the start showed that they came to race. 2 laps in Dana made an attempt of an early break away and The People’s Champ followed her wheel and the pair lead the field for a couple of laps. The last of those laps was a prime lap where Dana pulled out a second and The Champ swept up the final prime point. After this lap Hoots began to battle back to the pack which she lost during the crazy attacks. Unfortunately as Hoots made her way back to the pack the Champ faded and was eventually swept up by a trail group. The race pressed on and Hoots again was spit out the back and worked the rest of the race with Delaware in the first chase group. Dana unfortunately was unable to sprint due to the monster effort put on through out the race and finished 10th.
For dinner we went to one of the teams favorite restaurant of the season Louie Louie. The Critter showed us how he charmed his girlfriend with his awkward conversations with the waitress, including: Waitress “Have you been here before?” Critter “We came here last year too”. One of the reasons we love this eatery is because you can draw on the table which quickly escalated into a hangman contest. The good side of the table had the best word ever. The category was Well known personality/Awesome/Family friend , I think you all know who we were thinking about. After dinner we thought it wound be a good idea to watch Mr. Brooks, which if you havent seen I will just let you know that Andrew peed his pants while watching the movie and was not able to sleep until last night.
We got an early start in the morning with the rest of the ECCC and saw Mr. Kopena’s car wrapped, to which the person at the front desk said “I am the worst Night Watch person ever, I really should have seen them doing that”. We then followed the crazy train through VT and NH and almost were killed by a crazy person in a truck. I personally think that Joe knew exactly what he was doing but wanted to get the hoodlums who wrapped his car back, and his vengeance was sweet. The road race course was nothing less than amazing. The climbs proved a little much for most of the team except for Hoots who came in 10th. I would add more recap of the race but my non-cycling friends, have been complaining about my cycling tweets. So I will go defend my and all other cycling tweeters honor so see you all this weekend in Boston, o wait I mean Westminster, but we will get to that anger next week.
Filed under: road racing | Tags: Bon Jovi, Chelsea, Dana, Dartmouth, ECCC, Harvard, Hooters, Oakley, Super 8, Yale
Coming at ya, your always punctual and better spelling blogging cyclist, Le Prep. This weekend was Yale’s Lux et Velocitas. Our now regular home away from home one-upped its previous visits, not only with its proximity to wings, but also the fact that the girls room inexplicably had free porn the whole weekend. Now maybe our reaction was a bit overboard (shrieking and fleeing from the room in horror), but what can I say, we are classy broads who prefer pillow fights and giggling over gossip in hotels instead.
Saturday’s races were more like a triathlon with the swimming and cycling disciplines combined. Does Oakley sell sunglasses with wipers? Target Market: cyclists riding during the month of April in the northeast. Trust me, I’m an MBA.
After pizza and a cannoli (we tried to go to Pepe’s but were denied in our quest to feed 9 people at once), we came upon the greatest license plate ever. (Although, this one is pretty good too, but we didn’t see it in person.)
Sunday’s crit actually saw the sun and some tornado-like windgusts (Northeastern’s tent took off like a kite), but it was a massive improvement given the appearance of the sun, so we’ll take it. Which brings us to our next topic:
Attn: Women’s B:
The hazards of Women's B (pic stolen from Columbia)
1) What the heck happened on turn 5? My favorite person to draft off of (if she’s showered) suffered some massive carnage and doesn’t remember a thing. Anyone see what happened? (My buddy has percocet right now, so she won’t be mad.. she’s just curious. I know, just what we need.. another Ivy Leaguer on prescription painkillers..). In the meantime, I guess I’ll have to make those first-lap breaks solo. Anyone with details can hit me up on Facebook or if you’re the paranoid type, leave an anonymous comment below.
2) An addendum to the previous PSA post: If you have spent the last two weekends getting yelled at by numerous other B riders about your inability to corner in a crit, maybe you should take note take a freakin hint. I’m sure some Columbia riders would be happy to name a name, but hopefully this passive aggressive request will be heeded. Until then, know that those angry glares really are being directed towards you.
There should be pics from Sunday making their way to the interwebs soon, but in the meantime you can occupy yourself by checking out the Washington Post’s 3rd annual Peeps contest. Note that #29 uses bicycle parts.
Next week we head to Dartmouth’s L’Enfer du Nord (not to be confused with the real L’Enfer du Nord). But hey, we’re totally cool with a road race sans cobblestones. Happy to leave that one to the pros.
- Dana
Filed under: road racing | Tags: Amanda, Amanda Feirstein, American Flyers, Arjun Sudhir, Army, Chelsea, Critter, Dana, Karl, People's Champ, Scissors
By Chris
The Army Cycling Classic is by far one of the most anticipated races all season for your Cycling Eagles. This is just as much because the brutality of the races as because the fact that we normally have some epic crashes at West Point, including The Prep’s broken wing and Capt. Crash shredding his kits and giving the ECCC a little more to see than most people would have liked, not to mention the shame of all shames from two years ago that will not be mentioned in this public arena. The Critter and I drove down separately and in silence so nothing will be said about the insanity that must have been the van ride down. At dinner we learned that Amanda “The People’s Champ” Feirstein looks at the brighter side of everything, and I mean everything. Firefly was in rare form all weekend, one fun fact that we learned about her was her favorite office supply.
Saturday morning we woke up late for cyclist times because as a team we are weak sauce and do not have any TTT teams. On the way to the race we saw one of the most bad ass street signs I have ever seen, mostly because it said Cyclist on the road. Our first race to roll out was the Men’s D, the race went pretty well for BC and Chris “Diesel” Rakovic ended up in 11th. Next up was the debut race of Ryan “Phelps” Distefano in his intro category race, in which he finished 7th. After his race he said in complete exhaustion and I quote and by quote I mean make up because he is most likely a mute at least we have yet to hear him say a word “That was most definitely the most intense and difficult athletic competition I have ever been in, I don’t care if I am a varsity ACC athlete. Bicycle racing is the sport of god’s and I am glad to finally have manned up and participated in something worth while for once” Now he probably didn’t think this but he should have. Next up Karl “Critter” Hornerlaw rolled out with the C field, he road very well on a slow leak but in the last lap with pretty good position going into the climb his legs could no longer pump enough to drag that mostly deflated tire to the top of the climb in the front of the pack. The Women’s B field was our largest field per usual this season, which I totally do not get but I guess that’s not a bad thing? The General and Arjun went to the hill to cheer on the ladies. I am pretty sure that most if not all of the Women’s B field no hates or abhors us. The girls all raced well with Dana in the front pack and Chelsea “Hoots” finishing in the second chase group.
We went back to the Amazing 8, yep it was better that super, and watched what we shall call my all time favorite cycling movie. Then off to dinner which was not mexican which we all wanted, but instead we went to a quaint little Italian place with a fancy window which we were able to watch a nice little show.
The Hill Climb began with BC and the Critter hitting the road hard. Next the General hit the road and during the climb some how pulled off bending his rear derailleur hanger. The ladies attacked the road next, with Hoots eating the road for breakfast and coming home with 11th. The crit was up next, our Men’s D just couldn’t position themselves correctly and finished worse than they had hoped. Karl “The Critter” Hornerlaw had a pretty good race, and even got himself a prime point. The Ladies were up next and let me get out of the way Dana (8) and Chelsea (15) did great in the race. Now we can talk about all anyone really cares about the success of “The People Champ” Amanda “Don’t Call me Frankenstein” Feirstein. Amanda tore through that crit like Sherman to Atlanta to steal a phrase from an old high school football coach. Firestone after the race said that if it were not for all the training.
Alright so this blog is really late, and pretty sub-par, but KELLY RIPPA.
Filed under: road racing | Tags: Amanda, Andrew, Arjun, Army, Charles, Chelsea, Dana, Final Four, Karl, Pat's King of Steaks, Philly Phlyer, Rita's Water Ice, Susie, Tastykakes, Villanova
The team headed down to my old stomping grounds this past weekend, the ‘iladelph. Of course, fate would have it that my beloved Wildcats were playing at the Garden and took out #2 Dook and #1 Pitt for a trip to the FINAL FOUR!
Yeah yeah, enough about my undergraduate institution — God wants me to be poor and well educated, hence why I’m at BC now. But I must give credit to Officer Rick’s van driving school my junior year for the safe and super efficient (5.5 hours including two stops) Philly-Bos trip. Everything went off without a hitch, with exception of Amanda the Liar playing the license plate game while the rest of the van (excluding the driver) unknowingly slept in the back.
your fearless van driver
Onto the races..
The race season weather has been atypically phenomenal, so balance was restored in the universe by raining both days in Philly.
The circuit/road race (apparently they couldn’t decide what it actually was) yielded points for two in Women’s B: Dana in 10th and Chelsea in 14th. Karl scooped up 22nd in Men’s C and newbie Andrew came in at 29th. Results can be found here.
After the Saturday race, the team commenced its eating tour of Philly foods. After hours of practice, I deemed most team members competent enough to order a cheesesteak from Pat’s without getting sent to the back of the line and/or shot. Chelsea wisely decided not to inquire about their vegetarian options.
Not water ice
We then proceeded to Rita’s where most of the team was too scared of eating authentic water ice and opted for custard instead (still, a solid choice). Unfortunately, I am blogging at work and unable to download pictures of said event, so I am substituting it with a picture of the delicious cannoli that I had at dinner instead.
Then having a moment of food remorse, we decided to go run the Rockie steps in hopes of preventing our arteries from closing off entirely. Susie the Deliquent took photos, but gave up Facebook for Lent, so check back in a couple weeks and we’ll have some pics of yours truly dominating the stair race (years of running stadiums for crew practice finally paid off). Due to imminent exploding, we were not able to make it to Great Harvest or the other hundred food eateries I frequented at ‘Nova.
Sunday’s crit was flat and rainy, only for the sun to come out as we packed up the van to leave. Charles managed to make it through the crit only after 923046 tubes (good thing Arjun works at IBC and can score a few thousand more for spares).
The Women’s B crit had a few near-misses, but everyone emerged unscathed. I got so many compliments on my Slipstream armwarmers this weekend, maybe they will forget that I’m that b!tch who keeps attacking in races. And look, my first finishing photo. Some ho-bag from Harvard edged me out in the sprint (hi, Anne!) and I took 5th.
The Men’s C crit had Karl in 18th, Andrew in 25th, and Susie winning the 100m dash to the pit. Full crit results are here.
En summary: cheesesteaks + Tastykakes + turkey jerkey = cycling success
Sorry, one more time:
Next weekend is Army, the place where my bone structure failed me. RSVP here.
-Dana
Filed under: road racing | Tags: Cannibal, Captian Crash, Chelsea, Chicken Finger, Chris, Dana, Delaware, Hooters, Karl, Small Wonder, Women's B
By Chris:
Delaware Weekend Recap:
So our funding being pretty tight we were not able to send the entire squad down to the first state but a lucky few of us schemed our way down to that small wonder, using fake names, stolen identities, and zipties. Miraculously the trip to Delaware was 2 hours shorter than the trip to NYC last weekend. But alas we did not stay in our beloved Piscataway. The trip down did teach us many things like how Karl can do more with zip-ties than McGiver. 
Also on the trip certain team members formed a new dynamic to their relationship due to shared love of chicken fingers and disgust due to peecups. This also came close to changing one of their nicknames. Some more spectacular and riviting conversation ensued until we finally got to the Small Wonder, yes that is what the sign said not First State but Small Wonder, mreh.
We arrived rather early for the first race where many legendary lines were said highlighted by “That’s lady butt”. The lady’s rolled out bright and early and the eagletteshad a very strong race both finishing in the top 10. Dana Prey finishing 7th and Chelsea “Hooters”Amenqual finishing 9th. Next our Men’s C contigent rolled out with Karl “Critter” Honerlaw getting the only male points of the weekend, stealing 12th from his chase group companions. Chris “Unleaded” Rakovic recieved a well deserved butt whooping, well deserved because his choice of riding horses instead of concentrating on training gave him the wrong kind of legs, not sure what legs he brought but they were the wrong ones. Also living up to the original moniker of Captian Crash, although it was barely a crash it still counted. After the Men’s C race, Hooters came by and showed off her and Dana’s new purchase, the weekend shirt. I have one bone to pick with the shirt, I mean it is cool and all and I completely applaud any extra cycling apparel you can get but if you look closely at the shirt the person on the bike is not riding a rode bike which is absolutely obvious due to the lack of drops on the bike.
Sunday brought the only true critique, or I guess you would call it a complaint, which is that I wish if at all possible that Sundayonly have one race. Don’t get me wrong I loved both the time trial and the crit course but I wish that the TT was on saturday, just to make traveling a little easier. But that being said I am sure there were legit reasons for the two races being on sundayand they were good enough to make up for the late hour at which we made it back to The Heights. The women both partook in the greatness that is the race of truth with Hooters coming in 9th. They arrived back to Captain Crash warming up and decided that throwing pink streamers in the back of his polar jacket would be a good idea, but alas it fell into his spokes almost killing him, it also sounded like a puncture and completely freaked me the creep out. The time trial was better than the road race for Capt Crash.
The crit was an amazing catastrophe, by that I mean it was amazing but it also had some unfortunate events. The women’s B race happened to hold the most unfortunate of events, which was the some pedestrians walked in front of the pace motorcycle and caused him to crash. This stopped the race and delayed it quite a bit it may have changed the race. This may have worked in our favor due to the fact Dana scooped up 3rd in the race almost edging out an A racer in the process.
The Men’s C critwas a less fun adventure, both of the racers feeling defeated and not being able to finish the race made the first few minutes of the car ride back less than enjoyable.
This recap is over fools.
Filed under: road racing | Tags: Al Gore, cheesesteaks, Drexel, Larry King, NSYNC, Obama, Pat's King of Steaks, Penn, philadelphia, Rachel Ray, Temple, Villanova
On deck..
The Philly Phlyer, hosted by Penn, Drexel and Temple.
Race Flyer (pdf)
Website
BikeReg
RSVP on Facebook
The first Team Time Trial of the season, along with a Circuit Race and a Crit.
More importantly, the triumphant return to my old stomping grounds. You better believe that we are stopping at Pat’s for cheesesteaks. However, I will have none of you embarrassing me, so it is imperative that you adequately prepare yourselves for the experience that is Pat’s.
Pat’s is open 24 hours a day and looks like this at 2am any given night. If it’s good enough for Al Gore, Obama, Larry King and NSYNC, it’s good enough for you. Hell, you know Rachel Ray was thinking about how many cheesesteaks she could make in 30 minutes.
What to order? It better involve steak. If you have a death wish, I suggest you inquire about their vegetarian options. You think I’m kidding.
The rules. Remember the Soup Nazi? This is the living embodiment of it.
CheeseWiz: Don’t knock it til you try it.
- Dana
Filed under: road racing | Tags: Chris Rakovic, Columbia, Diesel, ECCC, Karl Honerlaw, Matt Nole, Peepod, Stevens
By Chris
So its 9pm I have a 5 page paper on a book that I have not even opened the cover of yet due in the morning so what am I doing, duh blogging. Now I know that BC already has a recap of the weekends events but this post will have more embellishments and less chicken fingers.
I will start where all race weekends starts with the drive down. First let me tell you we were driving to Piscataway, NJ because we don’t like change and have booked that Motel 6 for the entirety of the ECCC race season including the Boston races. But anyways since the van got an early start we decided to go 95 the whole way. This was a fine option until we hit ol’ NYC and were stuck in traffic for a solid 12 hours or maybe less but it definitely felt like it, it felt like even more to one racer whose nickname is now been changed to Pee-pod. To spare you the gruesome details lets just say that’s one coffee cup I would never like to see again. Eventually after playing some license plate games we made it to our destination. You have already heard about the craziness that happened in the girls’ room. The guys’ room wasn’t as eventful although Matt “Hairball” Nole may have to get a new nickname but has become such a more legit cyclist.
Grant’s Tomb was in the morning and we were all ready to get racing. At the race we ran into Alan Rego, our former and possibly current? racer. Also everyones family showed up to the race because I guess in order to be a member of BC cycling at least one blood relative must live in New York. After a short delay which allowed us to watch all the races, our first riders prepared to get to riding in the Men’s D race. The race went really welly including a photo finish 2nd place for Chris “Diesel” Rakovic
Even if Arjun told the entire team that Matt “Hairball” Nole had came in second, never doubt Diesel. By the way taking a photo finish sprint for any place is completely bad ass, I mean look at that margin of victory. Also if you are unsure if you got that high place just scream really loudly and the announcers will think that you got it, it also helps if you do actually win that sprint.
After that “The Cannibal” had a pretty uneventful race finish. Our women’s team were next to roll out 5 deep in their B field. Their race was…eh ask them about it, I thought they were looking great but I guess there were some crashes that disrupted their race. We shall not get into that now because I mean the team and blog are dominated by the ladies and we need to have some more testosterone.
After the race it was off to a deluxe upartment in the sky. Where we gorged ourselves on much delicious food and most of us felt very much out classed and too stinky for such a great reception.
We arrived at the Steven’s crit the next day and immediately were terrified and began to take odds on who was going to die today. Dana had 1 to 3 odds, Hooters was at around 2 to 5 due to her previous day and Diesel was 5 to 1 odds. Surprisingly we all kept that rubber side down. Anyways we had another photo finish
Finishing photos are just friggin awesome.
On the way home no one wanted to get in the winner’s car because they all felt ashamed to be around such glory, but we told them Diesel and The Cannibal (who is finally accepting his name) do not care that you aren’t awesome its alright. Not eveyone can be fast and good looking, but if you ride with us maybe some of it will rub off on you.
To wrap the weekend up in a short couple of sentences because frankly I am pretty sure this is jiberish due to the fact that I wrote this piece by piece over a couple days. First the ride down was long and disgusting, we will never look at you the same Peepod. The Columbia was fast and amazing. The Stevens course was very challenging and if some people (read me) would have just Cowboyed up then it could have been an even better race, unless you are the Cannibal because he eat up that field. My brother came to both races and learned a whole hell of a lot about the sport and probably expanded his vocabulary a bunch, which is tough to do for a journalist.
Filed under: road racing | Tags: Blue Hen Dual State Showdown, criterium, ECCC, individual time trial, road race, University of Delaware
Blue Hen Dual State Showdown
Presented by the University of Delaware
March 21 – 22
Saturday: Road Race
Sunday: Individual Time Trial and Criterium
Road Race Course Video
Event Website
Race Flyer (pdf)
BikeReg (closes on Fri 3/20)
RSVP on Facebook
- Dana
PS: what the heck is a blue hen anyway?
Update: Time changes, Women’s B RR is extended (thought it looked a little short..), etc. Read on for more from Joe.
Filed under: road racing | Tags: Allan, Amanda, Applebee's, Chelsea, Chris, collegiate cycling, Columbia University, Dana, ECCC, Grant's Tomb, Jaime, Karl, Matt, Stevens Institute of Technology, Susie, Women's B
Another semi-decent weather weekend down in Dirty Jersey! Temps hit the 50’s and the races were rain free. Karl, Dana, Matt and Chris all scored points this weekend. Matt also got a fancy beard trimmer for silky smooth legs. Allan unretired from collegiate cycling and competed in the Men’s 3/4 and B races. Columbia lied about having food vendors at the race. Amanda celebrated her Friday the 13th birthday by doing body shots off Applebee’s hottest waiter. And I consumed approximately 400 calories in cough drops in two days (where’s the low-cal option? Two words: White. Spandex.)
Results from the Columbia Crit at Grant’s Tomb are here.
Results from the Stevens Crit can be found here.
Ever wonder what happens during an all-girls slumber party? Trust me, there are no pillow fights with those sketchy Motel 6 linens. Here’s what you missed:
“It’s more fun to tell people they’re wrong.” -Amanda
“Maybe that’s why you have no friends.” -Susie
Magic eye according to Chelsea
“I am so good at those magic eye things. Like oh, a planet. Oh, a chicken finger.” -Chelsea
“When you say vacuum it looks like I love you.” -Amanda
“Don’t you mean olive juice?” -Jaime
“I’m not gonna lie, I’ve sprayed Febreze in the air and walked through it.” -Chelsea
[Jaime walks into the room and hears the topic of Febreze being discussed]
[Condescending tone] “So in high school I totally knew this girl who used to use Febreze as a perfume.” -Jaime, unaware of Chelsea’s previous statement
“Where do baby carrots come from?” -Jaime
Answer: Thank you Wikipedia. Naturally, the next question was how baby corn was made. Again, Wiki knows all.
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| Columbia/Stevens |
Pics are on the way. If you took any from this weekend (ahem, Arjun and Karl), please upload to Facebook and/or Picasa.
- Dana
Filed under: misc, road racing | Tags: criterium, etiquette, Jan Ulrich, Lance Armstrong, Queen B, Tour of California, Twitter, women's cycling
Dear Women’s B category,
What the F? The past race weekend has proven that the ladies of the peloton need a referesher in everyday cycling manners and rules.
1. What’s up with the crashing for no apparent reason? What explicable reason do you have to turn your head to your teammate in a tightly packed group heading into a turn, lose your line, and take out a bunch of people around you? Silly errors create serious injury. Also, I’ve never heard such a potty-mouth from one Harvard cyclist. That was kinda awesome.
Look at Levi Leipheimer – he got all embarrassed about his crash in the ToC when he wasn’t paying attention and rubbed wheels with Lance, and karma got him back by breaking his butt. Unfortunately for the rest of us, we don’t have a fleet of spare bikes to choose from. Bones may heal, but carbon frames break forever. Think about it.
2. Why do people feel compelled to fly right off the starting line, and the ones in the back haven’t even had the chance to clip in? Let the group assemble, the girls jockeying for position in the staging area is already bad enough. I’m not saying to throw in the towel for a couple laps, but just give it a few seconds to get organized.
3. Common courtesy: remember when Lance Armstrong snagged his handlebar on a spectator’s bag in the 2003 Tour de France, and arch rival Jan Ulrich waited for him to catch back up? If When there is a crash, don’t take off. The people who escape the crash unscathed and those who had to slow down behind the crash are still racing. I know we’re chicks, but this is a gentleman’s agreement that any respectable cyclist adheres to.
4. Breakaways: is it just not in our DNA to allow a break to go for a lap or two? There are never breaks in womens races.. Anytime someone tries, it just speeds up the main field. What’s the deal?
General (not just applying to the Killer B’s):
- If you borrow someone’s equipment (bike, clothing, tools, etc.), you better return them in the condition that you received them. If you crash someone else’s bike, you should be begging for forgiveness and offering to pay for any repairs or replacements. Own up, people.
- Don’t expect to run a race on time if you don’t open up registration or the bathrooms until 20 min prior to the first event. However, cycling races never seem to run on time, so also be prepared for that.
- What’s up with the start/finish and the direction of a race that very morning?
- Guys, we really don’t need to hear about your stories about going #2.
- Collegiate cycling is centered around crits, not so much ITT’s or road races or circuits. If you suck at crits, you’re just gonna have to get over it (and stop making excuses – see Chris’ posting on that). C’est la vie.
- If you don’t bring your own trainer or rollers to a race, be aware that you may have to warm up on your own. First dibs go to the owners of said devices.
- What’s up with the weird facial hair this year? Is a full spandex outfit not attention grabbing enough?
QOTD: “Don’t those stupid girls know that only LA and DP can tweet from the peloton without crashing? Amateurs.” -Queen B
Heart,
Prep
Filed under: road racing | Tags: Calexico, Columbia University Cycling, criterium, Grant's Tomb, New York City, Treats Truck
On deck: Grant’s Tomb Crit on Sat, 3/14. Unfortunately the weather looks to be back in the typical high’s in the 40’s for this time of year.
1) Registration
Registration closes on Bikereg on Wednesday night, so please sign up soon.
2) Parking and Directions
As in previous years, Riverside Drive will be open for parking on the North Side of the course up until 135th St. To get there from the Henry Hudson Parkway, do the following:
- Get off the Highway at the 125th St. Exit.
- At 125th St., Drive East until you hit Broadway (under the Subway)
- Take a Left and Drive 10 blocks north to 135th St.
- At 135th St. go left and Drive 1 block west to Riverside Drive.
- At Riverside Drive go Left and you will see race parking.
3) On Site Food Options!
During the race, Columbia will be featuring the best in mobile food that New York has to offer. Both of the food vendors, Calexico and the Treats Truck, won Vendy Awards in 2008 for best mobile food vendor (overall and for dessert, respectively).
- Dana
Filed under: road racing | Tags: Facebook, Picasa, Princeton, Rutgers, Spirit of '69
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| Rutgers/Princeton |
Pics from the first race weekend are up on both Facebook and Picasa (in the event that your mom is not on Facebook and you want to share these pics. Unfortunately, this isn’t a problem for me.)
-Dana
By Chris
With the start of the season a mere couple of days away we will all soon find out whether our training and hard work pays off. Inevitably there will be people who will not live up to other people’s or their own hype and will then inevitably throw out excuses for why they preformed poorly. I have taken the liberty to compile a list of top 10 excuses we will hear this weekend for horrendous results.
10. I just didn’t warm up enough; my legs were just getting loose when I got dropped
9. I dropped my chain
8. I didn’t know that was the finish
7. I thought the marshal was pointing the other way.
6. The rider in front of me slowed down then I just couldn’t close the gap.
5. The pace was too slow for me; I do better in a faster race.
4. My goals are at the end of the season, I’m not at full race shape yet
3. I really thought Wii Fit would have translated well to on the bike speed.
2. I would have won if I had my aero gear.
1. If I go too fast the ladies won’t see my perfectly chiseled hairless legs.
After writing those I decided that I had just too much commentary on these to let it go unsaid. Number of the comment coincides with the number of the excuse.
10. It has nothing to do with your lack of winter training does it?
9. VDV already used this excuse a month ago in the AToC, and he came in 5th that day. Also any mechanical is part of the sport you have to learn how to deal with them and win.
8. This is actually an excuse I have heard every year from a rookie, let me tell all of you that do not know its called the start/finish for a reason, also if they are in a different place just ride hard till you see that finish camera or someone tells you to stop, never pull up at or around the finish it is poor form and dangerous.
7. If you were going to win there would be other people around you, also if you get lost on the TT course you deserve to lose. I have although used an alternative of this excuse, “The marshal jumped out in front of me.” It happened and I crashed but I wasn’t going to win even if the kamikaze marshal was there or not.
6. There is a reason that person was in front of you, they were faster.
5. This is an excuse I have even heard the pros use, but frankly if you are that fast push the pace yourself. Else shut up and win that sprint.
4. Most likely to be my excuse till the end of the season when I will say that I have trained too hard and my legs are spent. But anyways if you are not fast enough in March, I highly doubt you will get an amazing burst of speed in a month and start winning in April.
3. This is a dig at Frankenstein and also at the people who call that working out.
2. If you can not win on an equal playing field you do not deserve to win. If want to wear your aero gear cat up to A’s, but that would be too hard wouldn’t it.
1. This isn’t an excuse it’s the truth. The ladies love the legs got to let them get a good look at them not just give them a blur as you sprint across the finishing line. An even better reason for doing bad during the longer road races is that you wanted to sit up so the women’s field could catch you, and you could work your magic.
Please let me know how many and how often you hear these excuses because I am not lying you will hear all 10 of them.
Filed under: misc, pro cycling | Tags: Rock Racing, Rocks Not Dead, Tour of California, Tyler Hamilton, Vuelta Mexico
After Chris’ post on Tyler Hamilton’s US Road Champ jersey, that got me thinking about the countless jerseys sported by Rock Racing over the last year. This team has more wardrobe changes than Britney Spears on tour.
2008:
The standard Rock Racing kit is this, aka ‘Venom’. But that’s just the tip of the iceberg.
Tour of Britain: ‘London Rocks’ in green, black, and blue. In addition to Tyler Hamilton’s U.S. champion jersey, which also comes in white.
Tour of Missouri: the ‘Lethal’ kit
Tour of California 2008: ‘Crucifixion’ (allegedly in protest of the commissaries’ decision to bar three Rock Racing riders (all ex-dopers) from starting)
[The now defunct] Tour of Georgia: Body Armor in Peach
Harlem Rocks (I attended this race, pics can be found here)
U.S. National Championships, (not to be confused with Hamilton’s U.S. champion jersey)
Tour of Utah: Road Rash in Venom
Tour of Qinghai Lake: here
Four more kits yet to be seen. They’re all called “O.G.” Venom, road rash, black, and white
Total: 17 different jerseys (not counting Hamilton’s championship jerseys)
2009:
Tour of California: Rocks Not Dead, and Tyler Hamilton’s subtle US Road Champ jersey. Another view.
Vuelta Mexico: Same standard ‘Rocks Not Dead‘ kits for the team (another look), and Tyler gets a revised champion jersey (upgrade!)
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And of course, most of these jerseys (and bibs) are up for sale on the Rock Racing website (at designer jeans prices, naturally).
- Dana
(thanks to UniWatch for some of the links)
By Chris
Watching ESPN it was brought to my attention that today is National Sportsmanship Day. Since obviously they said nothing of sportsmanship in cycling I figured I would pick up their slack and write a little about our sports great sportsmanship and where it is lacking. Personally I believe that cycling and cyclist exhibit some of the best sportsmanship of any athlete. Cyclists all understand the pain the body goes through in a race and are willing to reach across teams to help out. Cyclists give opponents water bottles when it is needed, when passing a rider who is teetering on the edge of hitting the wall or has hit the wall every cyclist offers that fellow rider a wheel, or in very rare cases offer them a ride. Even in the heat of intense competition cyclists show sportsmanship whether it is the hand shake right before you battle it out in the final sprint, or sitting up and not pushing the pace after a competitor has crashed, or congratulating that person who just kicked your butt in the race. There are many things that people in this great sport do to show true sportsmanship and that is something in which we should take much pride.
Now there are some things that the sport could do to improve sportsmanship with in the sport. I am going to leave out the whole eradicating doping because I feel the sport is making great strides in this and actually has the best anti-doping measures of any sport. I mean entire teams have been established around clean racing, I mean one team even has it in its name. What I would like to address is the rare occasion when we do not leave everything on the road. Once the race is over it is over, I abhor the people who will blame their competitors for their loss. Yes being a wheel sucker is not the best strategy but if someone sucks your wheel on the final lap and then blows you away in the sprint do not get into a war of words just know that you got to give them a little shake and bake to make sure that does not happen. Whether you agree with the way people have beaten you or not, they beat you out on the road and leave it at that. Show some class and shake his or her hand and learn from what happened. If you do worse than you would have liked do not throw excuses out just shut up and ride. The person who quietly and gracefully accepts defeat with the desire to never let that happen again gets much more respect and fear from their competitors.
So do this great sport right and show the sportsmanship that is typical of the sport in general and of the ECCC in particular.
Filed under: misc, pro cycling | Tags: Facebook, Giro, Lance Armstrong, LIVESTRONG, Nike, Oakley, Trek Madone
Like shopping? Hate cancer? Read on!
Giro has just rolled out the LIVESTRONG helmets for consumer purchase. Check them out here. Lance wears the Ionos, which is on the far right.
The gear that Lance is training in is available at a number of Nike retailers and on the Lance Armstrong Foundation shop.
What about the shades? Yup, they’re available at Oakley — those pictured above are Oakley Radars. Lance’s latest model, as first seen in the Tour Down Under, are the Oakley Jawbone. Other styles can be found here: http://oakley.com/livestrong
Of course, there’s the LIVESTRONG Madone that Lance has been riding (and sometimes not riding). There’s chatter that a version of this bike will be available for retail (we’re guessing Trek will concede the custom paint job and use decals), but most likely none of us will be able to afford such a rig, so that’s where our speculation will end.
Speaking of Lance, it was just announced that he’s now on Facebook.
- Dana
Filed under: pro cycling, road racing | Tags: George Hincapie, Levi Leipheimer, National Champion, Rock Racing, Tyler Hamilton, Vuelta Mexico
By Chris
I don’t know about you but after watching the AToC (Amgen Tour of California), I was wondering one thing. What was up with Tyler Hamilton’s USA Road Champion’s Jersey? I thought maybe it was just a very dark blue that looked just like the other Rock Racing jerseys because of the rain, I mean I did see more stars on his jersey and his Rock Racing symbol had the blue field with red and white bars. I was relieved that I was not the only one that felt this way about the jersey. But alas do not be afraid our man is now sporting a truly Red, White and Blue jersey. It seems that Rock Racing waited till he raced out side our beloved nation to debut the stars and bars jersey, in the Vuelta Mexico. I definitely like the way they worked their new kit design into his champion jersey, although I still think that his Tour of Britain USA Road Champ Jersey was a little better, but then again I just really like Rock Racing’s Tour of Britain jerseys especially the green and gold jersey.
Now if you are still reading and checking out all of those sick pictures, that hopefully are linked to correctly, then like me you probably are incredibly bored and can not go out on the roads due to freaking blizzards in March. So how about I take a look back at a few past USA road champ jerseys: Levi Leipheimer had quite possibly my favorite US champ jersey and I was a little sad that he could not defend it and wear this jersey for a second year in a row, but once Hamilton won I was no longer sad just happy that my once disgraced hero was on the up and up. So my Google skills are horrible and the only George Hincapie champion jersey I could find that was any good barely shows anything, which is disheartening especially since I did like his US Postal jersey better than his Discovery Channel one, except the fact that the American flag behind the world does give a subtle hint that we are amazing which is always good. It seems that most champions have gone with the tried and true stars on top bars on bottom jersey including, Chris Wherry, Freddie Rodriguez, and Mark McCormack with a particularly heinious rendition of the stars and bars. I will let you all decide which jersey you like most, but I am just glad that the US allows the Champion have his own specific jersey unlike the ever unchanging champion jerseys of other countries like Germany, France , and Australia. If you want to look at a snap shot of some other national champ jerseys from around the world go here.
