Participation in Sunday’s morning race was a toss up for me. On Saturday night I participated in a barbeque, and when I say "participated" I mean that I sat around, drank beer and shoveled convenient foodstuffs into my chip crusher. This weekend I was indulging my passions. Saturday night I was enjoying the company of my family, beer and others—that’s not necessarily their order of importance—unless the beer is really fancy, then others can take a hike. Unfortunately, Saturday night’s lawn based indulging wasn’t going to increase my chances at waking at 4 AM to indulge other passion, which is racing bikes at dawn with scores of fellows in lycra outfits.

If I succumbed to barley temptation and snored through my 4 AM alarm, this would not be a bike racing journal entry, it would be a journal entry about "most every other weekend night in the summer", but I did wake at 4 AM, I rolled over and thought to myself, "Well, the weather seems very nice out there, why the hell not?" This scenario must have repeated itself all over the New York area on Sunday, because once the sun shoved its way into the sky on Sunday morning it seemed that EVERYBODY that was available to race bikes had arrived at the start line.

Big races in Central Park in the summer usually go like this: attack, attack, attack, fast, fast, fast, last chance desperate breakaway, a furious chase, a catch, and then one of the usual sprint suspects wins the race. It’s the pattern of the season, and that’s fine with me. I don’t go to Foghat concerts expecting to hear Mozart (they won’t play the Requiem Mass in D minor no matter how many times you yell it out), and I don’t complain when a race doesn’t suit my style, because it’s pointless, it’s much better to just wait for "Slow Ride" to come on and enjoy the show.

Saturday’s race had all the hallmarks of a typical big summer Central Park race: large field, strong teams present, a fast start and lots of sprinters. We rolled quickly though the first half of the race, we on BH were mindful of the fact that a move that didn’t include an AXA, Foundation or an Adler wasn’t going to do very well, as they had plenty of representation in the field. So we went with moves from those teams and proceeded to pop off the front occasionally, discover that trying to break away from a race that’s going really fast is really hard and then get swallowed back up by the race again. This "pop, plop and drop" scenario occurred about twenty times during the race as we made our way to the bell lap.

Near the start /finish line I was trolling near the front when Lisban and Doctor John jumped off the front, being not blind and of above low intelligence, I jumped along with them. I thought for sure that this would be the "last chance desperate breakaway" for today’s race, and I wanted to participate, because I enjoy desperation (I own every Corey Feldman album). I was hoping that Lisban and Dr J wouldn’t notice I was tagging along, and that I could somehow magically jump around them after we stayed away for a lap. This was, of course, a mid-race fantasy, I have a lot of these, most of them include Farrah Fawcett (I’m old) and Wheat Thins, but this fantasy was about winning the race. Unfortunately my fantasy was not to be, as the rest of the race was aware of the fast people (excluding myself) trying to get away. The move was swiftly smothered and then replaced by another last chance desperate breakaway. I’m not sure who instigated it, as I was drifting back into the pack and resuming my thoughts about one of Charlie’s Angels and wheat crackers, but the move grew to include, Greg O and Ariel M of Adler, Zach K of Organic, Alejandro G of Foundation, Mike H of Breakaway Couriers and another rider.

They still had a gap at Tavern, and that’s when Ariel and Alejandro jumped away to slap it out for the win, with Alejandro (temporarily) finishing first. Those of us left in the pack made our way to the finish in a large rectangular clump. Our clump was momentarily disrupted by the presence of three wayward finishers of the racing clinic as they made their way to their finish. We roared past them and the subsequent reaction of the pack spit someone (Etsu—hope you’re feeling well) at the end of the whip onto the ground on the left side of the road. Our stunned rectangle then barged its way to the finish, I almost got up to sprint, but the group was so tightly packed it would’ve been like pedaling in a crowded elevator. I sat down, cursed at some trouser fish (that’s a vintage reference for you careful readers—and it’s about the same fellow) who was a menace all day, and rolled over the line. Eventually Farrah calmed me down.