If you're unfamiliar with spring, here's how it works: one minute it's warm and sunny, then the next it's cold and rainy. Also, there are beautiful explosions of color as the flora blooms, which you can't enjoy due to seasonal allergies.
Spring also means the Classics are in full swing. However, I completely missed any and all Paris-Roubaix coverage, because owing to various time constraints and the vicissitudes of life in general I basically have two choices: ride the bikes, or watch other people ride the bikes. Therefore, I chose the former, and just as the sun began peeking over the horizon on Sunday morning I was lined up in Prospect Park, Brooklyn among a bunch of other 40+ Freds for a bicycle race.
Things started out well enough; thanks to all those sumptuous Eroica California miles I was feeling pretty good, and you can even see photographic evidence of my participation here. (I'm the Fred in black on the Specialized.) However, on about the 4th time up the hill I felt a softening in my front tire, and by the time we passed by the start/finish my rim was bottoming out. So I stopped, repaired he flat, and jumped back on the next time the group came around. Of course, being a lap down, I stayed all the way at the back of the field and out of everyone's way, even though it's not only against the series rules but also grounds for suspension:
If this offends you and you'd like to rat me out and rob you of my much-needed-for-both-mind-and-body physical activity I'm rider #108, as pictured here. However, in my defense I'd paid $40 and come all he way from the Bronx, and so what was I supposed to do? Ride solo laps around Prospect Park while getting passed repeatedly by three (3) separate race fields?
I don't think so.
(Also, in my defense, I never even noticed that rule until today, so I figured what I was doing was fine. But yes, ignorance is never an excuse, even though I possess it in liberal quantities. I've only been racing in the parks for like 20 years. Why would I bother to learn the rules in that time?)
Speaking of Eroica California, Juliet Elliott posted a video about it:
Not only does it give you a good sense of how stunningly beautiful the route is and how perfect the weather was, but also that stunning beauty is marred for one fleeting moment by your's truley struggling up a hill:
For that, and for being a rule-breaking 40-plus Fred, I am truley sorry.
18 comments:
Hate to say this, but it's still beautiful weather here in California. I rode so much this weekend, I'm taking today off.
Watched the video before finishing the post, and wondered "what dork is wearing Toga shorts?"
I'm salivating over that California dirt.
typo at "truley". unless this is an old dick van dyke movie....
I know that everyone is a critic, but riding without gloves?
Really?
If you crash and skin up your palms, you won't be able to masturbate for weeks!
Three words: DVR.
Assuming it worked and I'm not going to receive the merited karma for my glibness, we'll be watching Paris-Roubaix tonight. Though it'll be sad what with Notre Dame burning today.
At least you and Kristoff have something in common from your weekend excursions.
ken e.,
The "typo" is intentional, as is the "your's," which is also wrong, which hilariously you did not notice.
Your's truley,
--Tan Tenovo
"40+"? Whippersnapper. Now get off my lawn.
the race rules could have changed over the 20 years, and wouldn't those rules depend on the race director involved.
Hey Avid Driver, don't you have an Outside article that you want to plug?
Wish I had time to bike ride, it's been years since I rode more than 20 miles.
it's always (never, non-ironically) hilarious when i miss a typo. apologies now!?! shameful feelings left unspoken, but lurking. bad haiku at 7.
Oui, quelle tristesse au'jourd'hui.
No pit wheels?????.....Whata noob.
Came jonesing for that Outside article, but leftovers will have to do.
So the DVRing sort of worked for Paris-Roubaix, except NBCSports decided to run some hockeyish stuff into the first 20 minutes of it so it cut of right before the finish. Luckily there's youtube, though being an old git,* I don't get quite the same happies from a tiny little screen like to kids do.
*Double nickles on the dime this week, eff me.
Rules are made to be broken
Tires are made to be flatted
I recorded Paris-Roubaix so I could watch it when it was snowing too hard to ride my bike. If you're going to watch only one bicycle race all year, it should be Paris-Roubaix.
Yeah, the finish was chopped off, but that's what YouTube is for.
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