I’d recommend everyone try to get to the Athens Twilight Crit at some point. It was insane. All other crits after this will seem quite tame. There was an estimated 30,000 screaming people lining the half mile course……
The course was a rectangle with one long stretch being the start/finish and the other being a small climb. There are no additional lights on the course, just the already existing street lights. This leads to decent visibility but not the greatest considering the 9:00 PM start time. The entire course is lined with bars and store fronts filled with crazy, screaming, beer drinking fans.
As for the race….the first 20 minutes was a complete brothel. Write that down and put quotes after it. I saw on cyclingnews.com that JJ Haedo said, “Yesterday was scary with guys cutting corners all the time. The first lap made me nervous!”……….when a top sprinter’s a bit nervous……you know everyone else has already soiled themselves. I’ll gladly put myself in the “everyone else” category. I spent the first few laps trying to adjust to the darkness and judging by the chops thrown, so was everyone else. It throws your whole depth perception off as you go back and forth between lights and shadows. I also spent a good amount of time trying to find all the holes and bumps on the course. After you find them you basically try and not hit them for the remaining laps. Sounds easy enough eh? No. Early in the race, I hit one of the landmines in the road before the first corner and lost my grip on the handlebars…….Welcome to amateur hour starring none other than me. A few meters of top tube surfing later and I kept it upright just in time to carve the corner. Eureka! Ok, back to the Cage Match known by the locals as Twilight…… Also, in the first few laps there was a big crash after the last corner. Right as I started to round the corner, I could hear the crowd roar as they typically do when there’s a crash. As I saw the riders laying on the ground, I over reacted and for some reason grabbed a bit too much front brake………..Now, earlier that morning, the team had just received or new Louis Garneau skid lids and I really didn’t want to be the first guy on the team to crash test it …………To the crowds delight and my absolute shear terror, I managed to ride a nose wheelie right through the middle of the crash. With a move like that, I probably deserved to go down, but I didn’t.
As for some other keen observations I had……..
First, there was a nice stream of some sort of fluid running across the course on the finishing straight……..Every lap we rode right through it…………..and for awhile I thought it was a spilled beer……..But it got to be a pretty big stream…………………….Turns out it came from an over turned Porto-Jon……..Yuck! Also, there was very thick smell of beer on the finishing straight. Kind of like that strong smell of the fragrance section of your local department store. I always used to hold my breath as I went throught that section as a kid. After the race, all the local college students lining the course were trying to give out beer hand-ups. It made me chuckle.
As for the racing, the team road well infront of the hometown crowd. I finished in the group and we had Willo up front wrestling with the sprinters as he ran 6th in the bunch kick. Good on ya, Willo.
Wednesday begins a stretch of 4 consecutive crits. Three are in South Carolina and the last ones in Alabama. Then I fly home on Sunday. After about three weeks of being on the road and living out of a suitcase, I’m looking forward to getting home.
Cheers.
Categories: Daily Jibber Jabber.
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