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Columbia Race Weekend
March 15, 2008
Lenny "Yankee Clipper"
Klipper (Yankee Clipper being Joe Dimaggio's nickname and Lenny being
from the NYC suburbs, though I don't think he quite knew how to take it
when I called him this on a ride), David "HiSox" Hilbert, and myself
(Michael "Most Awesome Racer Ever" McLaughlin) drove up to Lenny's
folks' place on Long "Strong" Island on Friday afternoon, severely
overestimating the traffic and arriving much earlier than expected.
Some of the underpasses on the Southern State Parkway were, to put it
mildly, heart stopping with three bikes on top of the van, but we
managed to avoid calamity by Lenny swerving into the middle lane
whenever we approached a sign that read "Clearance: 7'6"" We admired
Lenny's gargantuan fish tank and debated the merits of photographic
fish tank backgrounds (we agreed that most
are cheesy), had a big Italian feast prepared by the Klipper
Materfamilias, and went to sleep relatively early. Well, I did,
while HiSox Hilbert did 2276 jumps on his makeshift busted-tube jump
rope. I'd also like to put it out there that I had to sleep in
Lenny's brother's bedroom (the brother being a Yale freshman) with
excess
Yankee paraphernalia, and I'm a huge Red Sox fan. UGH.
The next morning was cold and rainy, and after loading up the bikes and
a nice breakfast of pretzels and Sun Chips, we hit the road to the
Windy Apple. It all went smoothly until the Triboro Bridge, where we
took the "Bronx-Manhattan" lane rather than the "Manhattan-Bronx" lane,
the former of which didn't exit to Harlem-125th St. and which rather
dumped us onto the Cross-Bronx Expressway. After a slightly scary
turn-around on Grand Concourse in the South Bronx (and Hilbert buying
some... well, that story doesn't need to be told), we
re-crossed the Triboro, drove up 125th St, and arrived at Grant's Tomb
at 7:30, with an hour to spare. The parking area was great, a large
bridge section of Riverside Drive completely shut down for us. By that
point, the sun was rising, the rain was done, and it wasn't even too
cold anymore.
HiSox Hilbert and I commenced getting ready for the D race, using the
Portapots (they had hand sanitizer dispensers mounted
inside...genius!), registering, affixing our numbers incorrectly, and
test-riding the course. Or so I thought, because my test ride was an
abject failure, missing the whole foot of the L-shaped course, and in
the process missing the short but VERY steep hill. We commenced warming
up, at which point Ross "Mario Cipollini" Marklein showed up bragging
about his exploits the previous evening involving "models and
bottles*."
*maybe fictionalized.
The Terrible Trio headed up to the start line as the Intro races were
finishing and lined up together in the second row, at which time HiSox
Hilbert and myself realized "Oshitoshitoshit our numbers are on the
right and they should be on the left ARRRRRGGGGHGHHHH!" Commence
frantic re-pinning. I had Greg from UMass help re-pin mine, which
worked nicely, but HiSox took a while, and everyone (including the guy
from Velocity Results and the course official) was yelling "HILBERT!"
To be fair, it wasn't a big deal, but it was kinda funny. Then the race
began.
I got on Cipo-Ross' wheel and stayed put for much of the first lap, but
lost some ground when we came to the aforementioned and previously
unscouted steep hill, to which I thought "WTF WHERE DID THAT COME FROM?
I DON'T RIDE HILLS!" I held on, but on the downhill I tried to
swing around the outside of the pack, got caught in the wind on the
long uphill, and fell back. As I was doing so, I looked back and saw
empty road, and thought "GREAT. DFL." (Dead F'n Last). I kept soloing
for the next lap, caught one guy, then two more, and we got a
very poor paceline going. The guys were all young and didn't exactly
grasp the concept of pulling off the front and letting the line pull
through, but it sorta worked, or at least I didn't care because my legs
were busted by that point and I didn't have to lead the line. At this
point, I knew Cipo-Ross was ahead and I had no idea where HiSox was, so
I kept going. The pack lapped us with two to go and Cipo-Ross was in
the front, pushing hard. On our last lap, Curt from Cornell and I were
the only two left from our extemporaneous team time trial,
having left the other two guys behind, though Curt was almost taken out
by Cipo-Ross and two Delaware riders trying to exit the course as we
came around them on the outside as we had been instructed by the
officials. And then we finished without glory but with our honor
intact. Hey, we finished. Out of 39 starters, I took 22nd, HiSox
Hilbert took 32nd, and Cipo-Ross did his namesake proud by sprinting to
3rd behind Greg from UMass and some guy from Delaware. Honestly, what
is it about that state?
After some searching for Yankee Klipper with the keys, we all
rendezvoused at the van and got cleaned up and refueled. HiSox
disappeared to the Carlton Arms Hotel a hundred blocks south for an art
project, Michelle "Russian MiG" Mighdoll (you know, the plane that
Maverick and Goose fought in TopGun. Before your time? I'm really
trying here...) showed up, and Ross and I went up to watch the Yankee
Klipper's race. Every lap I saw, he was in it. Some dirty hippy from
University of Vermont solo'd to first, and, in the final field sprint
Lenny blew by some guy from UNH to take 3rd in the sprint, 4th overall.
After a bit, the Womens' B race began with MiGhdoll. I admit that I
wasn't there to see the race, but she performed admirably, taking 20th
overall, not bad at all for not having any teammates to work with.
So: a good day of racing. Everyone finished, no one was DFL, and we had
two top five finishes among five racers. Pretty pretty pretty pretty
pretty good.
Michael McLaughlin
University of Pennsylvania
Columbia
Photos
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