Hopeful Friday 6/11/2010

How can you not race this weekend?

This coming weekend has so many opportunities for cycling achievement I think that almost everyone will have a chance to place, in fact, I just placed right now sitting here at my desk. Unfortunately, I will have to stick around to get my money and risk missing Sesame Street, but $23 is $23.

Locally on Saturday, there’s the Tour of New York in Prospect Park. Also on Saturday is the Wilmington Whiteface Road Race, which is also the New York State road championship. There’s also the Bob Riccio Memorial Tour de Pitman in Pitman, NJ. In Connecticut, there’s the Nutmeg Classic Criterium: New England Regional Championships and CT State Championships in New Britain, CT. And finally, if you live in Jersey and are, um, experienced, there’s the 2010 New Jersey State Masters Road Race Championships in Ringoes, NJ. 

Sunday is a little more mellow, with only three races: the Saranac Lake Downtown Criterium—New York State Championships; the Tour of High Bridge in Highbridge, NJ; and the Whaling City Cyclone in New London, CT.

Today’s homepage art was provided by Taliah Lempert who’s having a show, you should go.

 

 

48 Comments

Nick David

Anyone know who the Columbia rider was that went down last night? Guy looked really bad. I sure hope he is ok.

Lapo Brakepad

123 from midpack. It wasn’t looking good when one guy crossed over half the field coming out of the bottom corner. It got sketchier from there.

On another note did that Polska kid really have to attempt to take a leak halfway through the race? It’s 90 minutes long can’t you hold it?

John Doe

Just looked like 2 guys touched wheels and that was it. Then after a warm down lap, I see Joe from Zepher/Jordan bleeding from his head and Dave Jordan tending to him.
Now here is the part that should concern everyone that raced this morning; the ambulance took 30 minutes to get to him. Thirty Minutes. Guy bleeding from his head, almost certainly seriously hurt and he has to wait a half hour for professional medical attention.
This is not to point fingers about who is to blame but rather have this never happen ever again.
Unfortunately, a bad crash occurs almost every PP race. Can’t there be an ambulance on the ready to tend to the injured when it does?

William Grips

The last and only ambulance ride I had was $849 for a 2 mile drive to the hospital – equaling about 1hr time for the EMS drivers to be busy. I doubt a race director can include a $1600 overhead in his budget. Good idea though.

Giovanni Pulley

in CP there is always an ambulance on standby near start/finish, pretty sure crcra isn’t paying them money like that…

William Grips

Could be that these guys are volunteering their time, the same way the ambulance is doing it that usually hangs out on 110th street.

Dylan Rivnut

There might have been an ambulance, but there was a crash early in the 4 or 5’s that it had to attend to.

Joe seemed concussed which was concerning, but his cuts looked ok. Piers from rapha had a deep gash on his nose, blood coming out of both knees and a broken tooth. Filip and two die hard guys went down too.

I have an etiquette question. When should you stop for a crash to help/see if everyone is ok? When it’s a teammate and looks serious it’s a given. But when it’s other teams, when should you stop. This was the sprint and I wasn’t sprinting so I stopped.

Hoped everyone is ok and/or heals quickly.

Assos Sealant

There was a crash in the 4’s, first lap at the top of the hill. Didn’t see who went down since I was too busy trying to keep him from taking me down too, but I heard afterward that he broke his collarbone. There was an ambulance there for a few laps after that.

Raphael Tank

riders must take more concern and responsibility for their actions in a race, just because it is a race does not mean it should be reckless. or we can go old school and self police those that are and then retribution will be given next week…
Either way, an ambulance MUST be present at the races at PP as there will be crashes every race for the rest of the summer.
Leznek’s uncalled for wreck and inury has done nothing to change the behaviors of riders that have no problem swerving and being sketchy…FBF, PP, Rockleigh, all have had crashes with riders going to hospital. Maybe the promoters are not instructing the riders and marshals, or educating (with basic flyers like race distance and start/finish times, etiquette, safety) the by-standers well enough as they count the $25-35 per entry they collect…

3-4 fields, 300-350 riders, go figure it out…its not about prize money, and it seems well enough is enough as safety is not being addressed pro-actively, by the riders, promoters, officials, marshals, by-standers.

It does not have to be this way.

Ruben Internal Routing

How a promoter can put on a race without an ambulance in attendance is beyond me.
Irresponsible, plain and simple.
Oh yeah, we need to stay upright too.
There was a bad crash in the 45+ at Ringoes this a.m. Dude was knocked out cold after a face-plant. Scary.

Ethan Cable

The ambulance was in attendance, it was busy attending to the cat 4 1st lap crash.
No one needs instruction to stay upright, we all want to finish in one piece. Marshals are not responsible for racers’ stupid moves.
BikeReg provides the distance, start time, etc. Flyers only provide litter in a nice park.
Etiquette? Shave your legs and holja line! If you’re seriously out of line someone will let you know.

Bottom line, shit happens. It’s a race and we all know the dangers going in. I double that statement on park races, just assume they’re more sketchy. You’ll learn that when you do more races, you’re obviously a n00b.

*advice of the day
protect your front wheel at all costs.

Dylan Rivnut

the crashes aren’t the promoters fault. PP and FBF are less safe venues, but as riders we know this and can avoid some of theses situations. At FBF, take some wind and stay away from the trees. At PP, like the commenter below, stay first wheel or last wheel and don’t contest the sprint. Todays crash happened fairly far back in the field. The field wasn’t at an unsafe place, it was well past the tight turn on the downhill with the pylons. In fact it was at a really wide place where theres that big striped buffer area b/w the car lanes and jogger lane. And rockleigh is a safe course – i haven’t ever seen a crash there in the 5 or 6 times i have raced it.
I guess my point is, most crashes are caused by everyone squeezing together or cutting others off all to avoid pedaling in a little win, saving those matches for the big win. None of these races are really worth that level of risk. plus there’s always another one next week.

Noneedforaname

Dylan @7:16, the crash happened pretty much right at the front of the field in the final K. The rider who initially went down was no further than 5 wheels from the front of the race, not in the back like you are saying.

PP

I watched a jogger die of a heart attack in PP while a EMT cyclist did CPR for 20mins. It took 25 mins for the ambulance to find the location. Unlike Central Park were you can say west drive @ 92nd st. The ambulance drivers can’t find land marks with in the park. It is a major problem for PP.

Logan Downtube

“Protect your front wheel at all costs.”

Nice.

Corollary: Your front wheel is no one’s responsibility but your own.

Neu

Wei Chen-CRCA-jr Development wins junior race with impressive long breakaway. Another CRCA kid was in top spot, but don’t know the name.

Ken Harris

Lucca Zeray was that other CRCA junior.

Three laps solo is a long way at High Bridge. I think Wei was pretty determined not to be caught at the line like he was at Bear.

KH

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