GFNY 2013 -- a wet misery but good ride and race beyond that!

The 2nd GFNY for Py. Saturday -- taking the LIRR train with friends to Pennstation, NYC to Sign In and pickup the race package, numbers, jersey, etc. -- the day before at the GFNY Bike Expo with Doug, Jeremy and Mark:

 
Sunday, barely Sunday -- wake up 1:50am... drive up with Doug's to carpool with Doug, Mark and Jeremy. Getting wet more and more on the way/LIE, yikes.... arriving in Manhatten, parking, unloading, little misery in mind, putting shoes on... -- raining, foggy, the clock is nearing 4am, dark, wet still rainy. About 45min easy ride to start, more and more green jerseys merging the bike path until hitting a slow moving crowd up toward the pre-staging assembly area with the only porta potties. Too early, this is the usual annoyance... We were supposed to start staging -- entering the bridge, lower level -- or entering the GW by about 5:30am. There in good time. Moving up to the bridge, no facilities on GW. Still almost 1h30 to go.

 


Thanks to the organizers for picking the lower lever so we had at least cover from the rain. It may have been near death waiting in a little wind and rain for that long in just a jersey. A notch of chill setting in. Cowering low at the side of the road hiding from the elements a bit. The dense crowd helps a bit warming... staying low. Still 1 hour to go. More and more riders rolling on. Moving up a notch. Chatting with some unknown riders from all over the world, a Canadian and others. Talking bike... it does not matter, some thing to make time moving. Almost feels like Py knows the guys forever... holding the spot/seat for a while. Then some activity moving up a bit more. Loosing the good spot. Sitting down n the pavement seams to best bet now. So what. 20 minutes... 5min... 1min .. and off we go!

     Flying out of NYC in a fast paced pack around 22mph moving, front pace vehicle in sight for long, awesome, fun -- just a little wet and foggy ride up to Bear Mountain. Entering the beautiful palisades road, a few climbs moving up in a rush. The pace still just up there, the photographers moto moving back and force... cool! Nearing 9W, still a hard pace up hill the pack stretching out a bit and separates, a few attempts to bridge up from the 2nd half Py was in now -- but no way to catch up solo, but keeping up a high pace solo for a while, a rider snagging on. A few more showing up from behind. At some point working with two others all the way up to bear mountain. Cruising via a few towns at high speed... not even realizing any food stops.
On top of bear the only stop. Grabbing 1/2 banana. Gone. Finally visiting this urgently needed bathroom right up there to drop some weight. So dump carrying all up, but no earlier chance. So what. All good now -- new energy. Still plenty of water and fuel -- pretty much 1/2 way. Good to fly on! Let finish this up and get out of that wet misery. Descending, little unnecessary slowed behind one other rider, passing at next safe opportunity. Tucking down, minimizing exposure to the elements. Woooosh... Hitting 73km/h on wet roads.... no problem, plenty of room, new Fredestein tires feeling good and giving secure grip. Let the fun begin. At some point loosing the two riders, so what. It's a GF -- pick, go pick a new rider if any... what so ever works -- right? Pulling long, good to be in front -- less dirty water from other wheels, most safe, best sight, views and best line to pick.

   

Have there been more rest stops? -- not noticed any but there must have been some. Good to go with two bottles, a cliffbar and 1/2 banana. Most fun part of the ride were the last 15km or so -- for a long time "we" -- two other riders and myself Py pulled a lazy bunch of about 15 or more guys around... I did not minded the front so much, less spray and drinking dirt water... plus most safe -- hehe!! -- and then on the last few climbs we just shelled those guys all off with ease... and had a nice steady good move with a huge gap to the "timing" finish!

    Results -- 5h16, 73rd over all: http://results.bazumedia.com/event/results/event/event-3985?entryID=4308689

LINK TO SPECIAL VIDEO PENDING -- come back!

Grabbing a few snacks before hitting the last few miles to the all over finish and ferry. Pasta and Choban Yoghurt waiting :) Then a long wait and little shivering at the Ferry dock, at least in doors. Quick warm face rinse off... a hot chocolate, so good! Then about 1..2 hours later taking the ferry back over to Manhattan. What a day!

    

Hunter Spring Classics -- a wet group ride or was it a race?

Saturday morning 6am leaving for a road trip to Hunter, NY. Few showers on the way, not too bad. But looking pretty dark up in the Catskill Mountains...

Signing in, preparing, a little drizzle...
As the start time got closed the rain intensified a little.

Staging in the rain was never Py's favorite scenario, but so what, at least not to cold or windy.

The race took off, soggy dirty roads, a good shower from other riders wheels and from out of the sky. Within minutes every one was soaked from head to toe... and slowly a steady comfort zone of misery was reached. The pack was moderately and with decent care moving along, no incidences for 99.9% of the 80 miles or two laps. A little effort at the only one climb of significance, but never anything really happened. A temporary minor gap, a few attempts in front where Py was mostly part of the game. But nothing worked out.

Group ride to finish. Within the last km RPC rider Tom managed to get up and did hell of a job pulling and setting up his team mate -- what worked near perfect and he could sprint to 2nd! Congratulations to Mark!


 http://velocityresults.com/results/445/hunter-mountain-classic-hunter-ny

Cleaning up... dinner with friends at Last Chance in Tannersville. Drive home.
Prolonged shower and multiple attempts to finally clean up from that nasty road grit left mainly in face and hair... yikes.

One more great ride -- SKM #2

A notch of chill this morning and a temporary cloud cover, but good for shorts :) One more good ride on "old" route now getting to new life with a bigger group! Just fun out there, thx to all for joining. Why not a new Sunday venue?

RP2IPBP-JP ** SKM ** New Birds?

Well now some one put's my "own" favorite route as a Sunday ride in place and a huge groups shows up -- starting pretty much at my door step -- OK, fine.

Good ride, great day and finally it's looking like spring! Thx to all.

Quabbin 3/4 Race Battlefield

Friday 1830 ferry to Bridgeport, CT and drive to Stourbridge, MA for a night stay near the race. Next morning drive up to the Quabbin Reservoir up a beautiful place on top of a hill overlooking the Reservoir.

Staging for 9:28 start of the 3/4 field -- a huge maxed out size of almost 150 riders -- the biggest field. Neutral fast roll down to mountain, already 1st bottle(s) flying -- WTF.
Then just the nature of no watching out took it's toll on too many riders with no chance to avoid the battle field like pile ups and crunching carbon on pavement.

OK -- post write up addition, need to share this video:



 In brief the following development from Py's perspective:
A scary race of "stupid" crashes (3 total, I only noticed 2 of them, one right behind, one just a rider right of me I could just manage to around, then carbon crunching sounds..) -- from then on split up race, not thinking about anything but getting the hell out of this crap and away -- chasing on passing riders (sorry I did not waited -- for what, for how long -- I did not even wanted to know what was happening behind at this point, had a bad feeling some how) and ending up in a 5 rider group doing a great long TTT effort to chase back on (what a relief on my mind of the previous craziness) -- well almost, we had them so close to almost grab, but our legs were too toast as the group in front stepped even more on the gas... as it felt like and slowly dissappeared again and we some how gave about up on this idea after some good 20 miles of casing. Later a group merged up from behind messed up a little our nice order. Flying on with more men power, little less efficient so. I did a good last move in front flying through this little town on BK like sandy roads, then rolled back to the pack, Karl was in the group behind and moved up at this point -- then it strung out a little and I did the last move up this hill getting a few riders back and the finish came in sight after the 2nd shorter climb of the final section back up to the tower.

Happy been there with no troubles in the way.

Little later the women's field(s) arrived. A few pics of the LLV girls:


***

Tour of Bear Mountain

Finding a few decent climbs once in a while! A picture perfect day, little chill in the air, but nice and sunny! Fun group, fun route, great day.