I enjoy racing at Floyd Bennett Field (FBF). You can tell I enjoy it because I drive from all the way from the cold northern heart of New Jersey through the island of Manhattan and out to outermost Brooklyn to participate in the races at FBF. It’s neither practical nor well-adjusted to spend so much time, effort and money to run rings around a debris strewn circuit that is slowly eroding away to expose its true nature as a land mass created with repurposed sand and covered with a precarious sheet of paving. But I live in the suburbs, so it’s either this or I spend my time at Applebees—and I hate Applebees.

This was a week of some new experiences at FBF, due to the goings on of the Park Service, the new course finished along the runway that bisects the normal course and Life Coach Mihael and I were accompanied by fellow Jersey resident Simon, who was doing his first race at FBF. Since I am old and have done approximately 2,000 laps in anger at FBF, this is not the first time I have done this course configuration. In years past, promoter Charlie has used this course as an emergency fall back when rain, flooding or pestilence make the normal course unusable. This was the first time I’ve ever finished on the new section though, as in year’s past, we finished on the straight between turns two and three. Of course, variety is the spice of life, and I was willing to try something new, because my alternative was of course, f-in Applebees.

Mihael, Simon and I drove from Manhattan without incident, and we did a lap forehand to survey the course and attempt to let Simon know what he was in for. There was a crosswind blasting between turns three and the new hairpin at turn four, and I gave Simon the crash course in staying out of the wind (these courses are available for purchase, just put $10 into my back jersey pocket when you see me). We tried out the new hairpin turn before the finish and found it mostly absurd. We rode the finishing straight and discovered it had a sand trap that looked to be mostly avoidable, and we made sure to take careful note of the more interesting craters that littered the last segment of the course.

On the drive to the race earlier, Mihael was telling Simon and I about his recent purchase of some beefy 25mm commuting and racing at FBF tires for the bargain price of $15 each (those who know Mihael, know that he’s not only forthcoming with his advice, but he’s also very thrifty). He has also ordered a tubeless conversion kit because, this year FBF has been a tire destroying behemoth. (This previous paragraph is included to serve as a bit of foreshadowing. I suppose mentioning here that this paragraph is foreshadowing defeats the purpose of foreshadowing, but I’ve never claimed to be Mark Goddamn Twain.)

New tires and new course notwithstanding, we rolled to the line and after the 3/4 race passed us, we shoved off. The pace was frisky at first and during the first few laps of the new course, we all tried to find the best line around the new turn four. After about three attempts that had me accelerating desperately after taking less a than optimal route though the turn, I found what I thought was the correct way to go through the turn. It involved going wide before the turn, going tight on the grate in the middle of the turn’s apex and finding the 6 inch wide sweet spot that bridged the two 50 foot long craters. If you missed the tiny bridge due to absolutely everyone else wanting to ride on the same little spot of asphalt, you had to other ride alongside the pack and lose speed or point your bike across the crevasse and hope for the best as you crossed over back to the pack.

That right there is a lot of words describing a turn, and that’s because five navigations of the turn comprised all of my racing action for the night, as I again fell victim to a loss of pressure on the inside my tire. Last week, my front tire asploded, and this week my rear tire, feeling left out, decided to asplode also. Last week, after a careful examination from my mechanic, a horizontal split in the area of my tubeless tire behind the braking surface on the rim was the culprit, and upon examination by a lesser mechanic (me) this week, the rear tire seems to have followed suit. I hit a hole in the hairpin turn (didn’t we all?), and poof, my air was gone. For the second goddamn week in a row.

I ride tubeless tires at FBF because I feel that they are a good insurance against duck walking back to the start in my racing cleats, but it seems that this year, with the new craters and the special garbage imported via Hurricane Sandy, that almost any tire set up is vulnerable. Flatting every week is not fun, it’s costly, frustrating and maddening. Especially when your traveling companion finishes the race with a set of $15 tractor tires on his bike, but I can take consolation that Mihael did finish 11th, one place out of the points. It’s thoughts like these that keep me out of the Applebees.

In other news of the pointless, it seems that I am the new Strava King of the New FBF Circuit, and I shall remain so until someone faster than me uploads their Garmin data.