Henry Loud of Team Pegasus in front of Ed White of Bouledogue Tout Noir. But if Ed's in the photo, how did he take it? Simple: he is magic.
The warm-up paceline.
Ben Fietz giving the rookie racers a lecture on track safety and etiquette.
Andrew Yeoman of Team Pegasus going up against Al Urbanski of WDT in the sprint final.
The field coming out of turn 2 during the scratch race.
Al killing it.
Ben getting ready to do a few motor-paced 200s.
Messenger winner Nico trying to come around in the sprint final.
Andrew has a quick look over his shoulder to make sure his move worked. It did.
In the turn during the scratch race.
Ted B with the next generation of racer.
These are the bars that Aaron made as one of the main prizes for VeloCity Chicago 2010. They're even more beautiful in person, and everyone at the track wanted them, but they were won by Al Urbanski of WDT. Well done, Al! I'll have a full report of the day with more pictures up soon. Julio and Ben and Squid and everyone did a great job organizing it this year. The bars got their great paint-job from ChesterCycles.
Non-messenger scratch race, with Team Pegasus well represented. Sad to see, however, that Frank doesn't race in deck shoes anymore. Photo by Gavin Gould.
Early match sprint heat, non-messengers. Andrew, Tyler and Sage of Team Pegasus, and Val of Bouledogue Tout Noir. Photo by Gavin Gould.
Stan feels ill while Andrew gloats. Photo by Andrew Nordyke.
Another match-sprint heat at the line, this time with Andrew Nordyke risking death to take a polaroid. Photo by Gavin Gould.
j.dot of dispatch101 calling out laps in the points race. Photo by Gavin Gould.
Al Urbanski of the Chicago Cuttin' Crew getting ready to own his match-sprint heat. Photo by Andrew Nordyke.
Check out more of Ed White's excellent photos of the Bob Pfarr Classic on his flickr here.
What the Casco Attack should look like.
What the Casco Attack looks like after a high-speed crash on a concrete velodrome.
Scratch race field, with Cale from Team Pegasus right in the center with his amazing pink front wheel. Photo by Ed White.
Damn you!!The MKE crew of Team Pegasus was there, of course. I hadn’t raced the Tuesday night races at Kenosha before, so I talked to Cale and Andy about what to expect. The main difference from Northbrook was that there was no Cat5 group, you started at Cat4. But not to worry, they said, I would do fine. I think Andy even said I would definitely win money. Clearly, my over-inflated reputation had preceded me. Doing pretty well at Northbrook, and then coming 4th at Velocity and winning a bunch of races out at Hellyer had convinced everyone, especially me, that I was fast. This night would be an object lesson in not believing hype.
Locals were setting up their little folding chairs on the green hills and slopes that overlook the track as we lined up for our first race. It was to be a win-n-out, my least favourite type of race. A set number of laps, with the winner of each lap dropping out: whoever wins the sprint for first lap is 1st overall, whoever wins the sprint for the second lap is 2nd overall. I’m not much of a sprinter, but I’d seen someone come 2nd to Jeff Perkins a few weeks before, at Northbrook, so I had a plan in mind: get to the front, grab a wheel of whoever breaks, keep it going after they drop out and hopefully take second or third. We started, and I did exactly that. Except I wasn’t the only person with that plan. A few of us broke at sprint speed from the jump. Guy won 1st and dropped out. I was on the wheel of the guy who was now at the front. “If I can hang on,” I thought to myself “he’ll take 2nd and I’ll try to keep it going to take 3rd.” I kept spinning, fast through the second lap. Guy took 2nd and dropped out, leaving me at the front for a full lap. Coming up to the line for 3rd and I was absolutely sure I had it, when suddenly someone passed me to take it. I think it might have been Lyle, who came down from Madison for the night just to crush me.
By then I was exhausted. Not getting third sucked. The winners had all dropped out, but I was still in there and basically I’d been sprinting for three laps straight! Still, I tried to keep it going for 4th, because now I just wanted the race to be over. At the front again, I was getting ragged and sloppy. I came out of the last turn of lap four and I saw the line. I was almost there. It was almost over. My lungs burned. My legs screamed. And, right on the line, someone got ahead. Just a few inches, but enough. They took 4th and dropped out. In a moment of petulant anger I screamed and hit the flat of my bars with my fist. All that work, sprinting from the start, trying to stay away so I could drop out early, all for nothing. I was absolutely dying. I couldn’t breathe. I can’t even remember if I finished the race or if I just dropped out immediately.
I was done. I had put it all out there, in the first race, and couldn’t do it. I was too slow, and now I could hardly breathe and my legs were shaking. Dejected, I sat there, trying to get my breath back. Other races happened around me. Eventually, it was my turn to race again, but I couldn’t do much. A pro-level Madison, the night’s main event, was fun to watch, but all I could think about was how certain I had been, how certain my team-mates had been, that I would win something. It was the last night of the season. It wasn’t how I hoped it would end.
And yet, I had a good night. Hanging out with the team and seeing the MKE crew is always fun, and I learned a lot. I learned that the racers at Kenosha are fast. I learned to not let expectations fool you. I learned that being at the front is not always the right move. I learned that 666 may look badass but is almost certainly cursed. And I learned to never, ever race win-n-out. Ever.
After we loaded our bikes into the trailer that Val and Brean were towing (not me, I managed to get my bike on Aaron’s truck with the other bikes too sexy to mix with the proletarian rabble) we all boarded a school bus for the trip north to Kenosha. We got lost twice. Once while still in downtown Chicago. I think the driver was legally blind.
The "sexy bikes" truck that I somehow managed to get my average bike onto. From left to right: Henry's ICE, my Concept, Michelle's Watanabe, and Aaron's Gentili. Photo by Chris.We made it to Kenosha eventually. Bikes were unloaded. Tyres were pumped up. Race numbers were distributed. Infield chilling space was claimed. Barbecues were lit. There were lots of people there, lots of racers but also just a lot of people hanging out and having fun, watching the races and cheering the racers on.
The racing was split into two big groups, messengers and city riders. The top male and female messengers won plane tickets to Dublin to compete in the Cycle Messenger World Championships, and a bunch of other stuff like custom Chrome bags. Fancy!
The races were a blast. In my first scratch heat I came third behind Lyle and TJ. I won my second heat. Here’s a picture of me making my “comedy smug bastard” face as I cross the line ahead of TJ:
Then, in my last scratch race, I decided I’d jump coming out of turn 2 of the last lap, and try to keep it going. I got a good jump, and I had no idea where anyone was so I thought I’d caught them napping. I hammered away at the pedals, and coming out of the last turn and into the straight I started to smile. I slowed a bit and did the my “comedy smug bastard” face as I crossed the line. I even included some “smug nods to the crowd.” Except I had made a mistake… I had slowed enough to let Lyle, barrelling along behind me like the fast lunatic he is, pass me. Right. On. The. Line. Did I mention that everyone was sitting right there at the finish? The howls of derisive laughter will haunt me till I die. I had fecked it up by celebrating too early, and ended up looking like a total gobshite. Mortified.
I don’t remember much after that. There were points races and miss’n’out (which I think I came 3rd in). We raced, I was made fun of, people not racing drank, prizes were given, I was made fun of, people tried to tell Josh how to run a race, I was made fun of, whatever. Andrew Nordyke and Jen Greenburg won the messenger category and got their tickets to Dublin. Lyle and Val won the city biker category. I was proud to come 4th overall in the city rider category, behind Lyle, Ted, and Henry, three great riders.
Group photos were taken, beers were downed, bikes dismantled, and buses boarded. The day had gone by so quickly, but I realized that I’d learned more in that one day of racing than I had in all of the track clinics and Friday night races I’d done at Northbrook. Plus, just hanging out with everyone was great, and it was cool to see so many people try track racing for the first time.
Velocity is not coming to Chicago this year, because Chicago has the NACCCs. But if it’s coming to a city near you then you have to go, and if you race, and you think you’ve won, don’t celebrate too early…
Go here for details on Velocity 2008.
