I went to scope out the Roller race event last night and it was pretty gnarly! There were a bunch of falls but no one really bought it. One of the rollers bought it though I wasn't there to bear witness. Apparently one of the guys shattered one of the drums! It was super awesome to see Bike Works roller set-up in action..
Since there was like two billion flashes going off I thought it would be more fun and or exciting to shoot some video:
Okay, it's like 10 minutes of strung together footage but there's some good parts..
So here's where I bitch out and just copy and paste what people on NYC fixed are saying.. I need to get ready to go to the job...
Since there was like two billion flashes going off I thought it would be more fun and or exciting to shoot some video:
Okay, it's like 10 minutes of strung together footage but there's some good parts..
So here's where I bitch out and just copy and paste what people on NYC fixed are saying.. I need to get ready to go to the job...
Al: god damn that was fun.
Talkin to Christian Vandevelde and racin against Bobby Lea was pretty cool too
Mattio: Al you got to the semis? Nice! Say more...
Driver: I think the best part may have been when buddy SHATTERED the blue roller while warming up.
...either that or the roadie in sunglasses going back for more, again, and again, and again...
Al: Alan, CyclingWMD, has some video which will give people a better idea of the races, but a good number of competitors showed up, mostly beefy track racers. The rollers took a bit to get used to. They are substantially narrower and a bit more jittery than my rollers at home. In the warm up time prior to the races, one of the racers was spinning up and one of his rear rollers catastrophically failed, with the tube completely ripping off from the axle and him shooting back into the bikeworks sign.
Watching that gave me second thoughts about competing.
The races were set up with a 500 m time trial for seeding then a three up 1,000 m roller race to decide who moved forward. There were some heavy hitters competing, including current Olympian Bobby Lea and Andrew LaCorte.In the Semifinals, I ended up riding against the Bobby Lea and some other guy. I came in second in that. It was fun simply competing against an olympian, even if it was just a roller race.
The finals came down to Bobby Lea, LeCorte and some fast dude sponsored by Van Dessel. It was a tight race between LaCorte and Bobby Lea, but halfway through LaCorte lost control, crashed and somehow ripped three spokes out of his front wheel. Almost each race had someone crashing/falling off the rollers. One dude smoked his tire as he fell off.
Edit: Driver was my spotter throughout the night. Thanks Driver!
CyclingWMD: Yes! Alex killed it riding against those fuckin' track monsters!! Here's some video I shot. It's like 10 min of strung together footage but you get the idea:
Talkin to Christian Vandevelde and racin against Bobby Lea was pretty cool too
Mattio: Al you got to the semis? Nice! Say more...
Driver: I think the best part may have been when buddy SHATTERED the blue roller while warming up.
...either that or the roadie in sunglasses going back for more, again, and again, and again...
Al: Alan, CyclingWMD, has some video which will give people a better idea of the races, but a good number of competitors showed up, mostly beefy track racers. The rollers took a bit to get used to. They are substantially narrower and a bit more jittery than my rollers at home. In the warm up time prior to the races, one of the racers was spinning up and one of his rear rollers catastrophically failed, with the tube completely ripping off from the axle and him shooting back into the bikeworks sign.
Watching that gave me second thoughts about competing.The races were set up with a 500 m time trial for seeding then a three up 1,000 m roller race to decide who moved forward. There were some heavy hitters competing, including current Olympian Bobby Lea and Andrew LaCorte.In the Semifinals, I ended up riding against the Bobby Lea and some other guy. I came in second in that. It was fun simply competing against an olympian, even if it was just a roller race.
The finals came down to Bobby Lea, LeCorte and some fast dude sponsored by Van Dessel. It was a tight race between LaCorte and Bobby Lea, but halfway through LaCorte lost control, crashed and somehow ripped three spokes out of his front wheel. Almost each race had someone crashing/falling off the rollers. One dude smoked his tire as he fell off.
Edit: Driver was my spotter throughout the night. Thanks Driver!
CyclingWMD: Yes! Alex killed it riding against those fuckin' track monsters!! Here's some video I shot. It's like 10 min of strung together footage but you get the idea:
Quote: driver: ...either that or the roadie in sunglasses going back for more, again, and again, and again...I felt slightly guilty watching that guy looking forward to him spilling.. but only slightly.. The best was when he got all wicked squirly (as seen in vid) and SUPER rubbed up against the wood and smoked his rear tire- you could TASTE the burnt rubber in the air it was so thick!
Great job Alex! Remind me to hang with you and Cooper (who also did a great job!) so I can get my racing chops up to par...
