I just finished the 10k, too. Unfortunately, it suffered from a lack of
forethought. A hint came in the form of the directions there -- the
place is listed on the MUC website as being 1928 Poplar Ave, but when I
put that into my GPS, it took me to somewhere about a mile away.
Luckily I was able to get to the start in time by following the
directions printed out in the comprehensive booklet that each family
gets a copy of. This NAUCC is not very GPS friendly: The main venue
doesn't even show up in my GPS because it's part of some new
construction; according to my GPS, when I'm driving there, I'm in a
roadless desert.
The leaders of the 10k explained the route, but when Tommy mentioned a
hairpin turn, he should have said that we'd be doing a 180 around a
cone. Kevin Gilbertson (Gilby!) and I -- both on 29" Schlumpfs -- were
neck and neck for the first few minutes with no one even close to
approaching our speed. We zoomed right past the 180-degree-turn cone
(which looked like all the other cones except for the little curvy
arrow on it) and ended up adding about a mile to our ride including a
slow uphill. By the time we finally got back to the course, we were
even behind the little kids on 24" unis who'd started the race 2
minutes after the 'unlimited' riders!
Irene and Andy Cotter and a few others rode fairly fast considering
that they were on Cokers, and the race winner, Dave, was one of the 4
people on gunis (a member of my club, James, was on a borrowed one).
Dave is in good shape and is a fairly fast rider, but I can't deny that
it was royally disappointing to realize that he and Irene came first
and second when those spots were clearly destined for me and Gilby, tho
I don't know which of us would have taken the gold.This was the only
race that I could have won outright.
Well, there's always next year.🙁
--
David_Stone
Dictator for Life,
NYUC
Check out my blog (or else):
http://newyorkunicycle.blogspot.com/
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