Hub Racing dccourier.com hubracing.com begaservices.com

LATEST NEWS

Philadelphia is a simple city. Both beautiful and well designed. Mostly one-way streets, and friendly people. Less hassles with friendly people. I probably could have figured out the course on my own. But I didn't. I decided to take the easy foreigner's route. Follow someone from Phili. We started with a pair of bricks. Thank you Esher (the organizer). I came into the first checkpoint hot on the wheels of a track bike, Dan I think. "Pull the tube from your front tire!" was the shout. "Easy," I said. And I was fast. I looked for my local escort. There he was, tire in hand. "Who has a spare tube?" he was yelling. Not what I wanted to hear, the race was riding away. I tossed him one, and looked for other options. I saw two of my DC brethren: Frank Peele patiently waiting for John Winslow as he finished resetting his front wheel. Three DC riders in search of a single Phili tour guide whom we would gladly pull to the finish in exchange for good direction. We saw one, but he wasn't waiting for us. We chased and caught him, but he left us again.

Now joined by Yacc from NY and Jeff from Boston, we were five out of towners, but only four of us felt any anxiety. Not Frank. Not even a hint of being lost. "I know the way. Follow me and I shall lead." And as the five of us rode off, we were joined by Bill "Bagman" Stapler, another DC rider with his tiny homemade front paniers on his tank of a hybrid. Five of us willingly followed the Franker, only occasionally strong enough to take a pull at the front. Frank was flying. One checkpoint after another.  Pick up more bricks from a brick field. I ran and carried an armful of bricks back for those riding with me and threw them over the fence. Another load. Back on the bike. "There's been like a dozen or so before you guys, not too long, though." Not bad, I thought. A later stop. Crawl thirty feet on your knees in a circle on the industrial carpet  around a bike shop. "How many before us?" "I dunno, maybe six or seven." Over halfway through. My left ergo power lever snapped in half. But being Campy, I knew it would hold on to the end of the race. It did. "Not more than five racers ahead of I think. Yea, five."

I pulled up next to John. "We're the second group on the road," I informed him. I don't think he realized the magnitude of what I was telling him. I knew, with more than five checkpoints to go, that we could and would chase down the leaders. We passed someone. He didn't stay with us. Frank was hammering. I had to make every stop as fast as I could. In and out. Working off the bike just to stay with him when I got back on the bike. Seven separate times, I thought Jeff or Bill had been left alone in the streets of Phili, but each time they rejoined. I did not want to tempt that possible fate.  Frank couldn't wait for me anymore. He could win this. I dove to catch his wheel.

Two stops to go. "Up the road!" I heard someone shout. Two of the remaining three leaders less than two blocks ahead. There was no holding back now. I came to the front and upped my gear. Everything I had I gave in one last four block pull. Time-trialing, trying to catch the riders ahead. Yacc came through and took a turn, then John, then our leader: Frank. He pulled away from the rest of us just before the courtyard. The leaders were right there. Up the stairs. Frank had caught them. I watched as others ran back down the stairs ahead of me. Only Bill and Jeff lagged with me. We walked down. We were almost cooked.

The three of us picked up our bikes and rode towards the finish, noticeably on our last ounce of energy. A pair of friendly drunks in a small park pointed the way. I saw the finish and came around with Bill on my wheel. A sharp left into the finish. I was sprinting, such as I could, and had to lay down my foot to make the turn. I looked around. No one was there yet but the victor: Blake "the Big Daddy", the man Frank had chased so hard, caught, and now clearly had lost again in the last few blocks of the day. Plus a few others who hadn't completed the checkpoints, now relaxed, cheering and snapping pictures. Yacc was just pulling up, somehow behind us, and from a completely different direction. Frank and John were close behind him. And there I stood. Second place. I walked up a little hill to a clearing and collapsed in the grass.