Racing in the Windy City (not Chicago though)

This past weekend the UMASS bike racing club made our way down to New York City for some collegiate road bike racing. Myself and ten others made our way down on Friday evening, and everything was going so well, until it started raining, which is what we had expected, but had feared. We got to our shady motel around 8:00 PM, after which we unloaded our bikes in the rain and then settled in for some food we made in the hotel room, which consisted or rice, beans, and tortillas, pretty good.

We woke up Saturday morning to pouring rain and gusty winds, and this was only the beginning. We made our way to the city and when we arrived the rain was coming down in buckets, and the worst part was the wind. The wind was just pushing its way around, if you didn't have a sure footing you were going to be a kite without a string, you were never coming back. Long story short, our team had a pretty good showing despite the weather. Myself on the other hand, I didn't do as well as I would have liked, but at least I didn't get blown away by the wind or drown in the rain. Now the good news, the race was at a really cool venue, Grants Tomb in Riverside Park, a memorial to General Grant. It was neat to race in a large city like this, this is what Grants Tomb looks like:

On Sunday we raced outside of the city in FDR Park. This race went better for me, however I didn't finish well, I felt good throughout the race and got some good training in , which is my ultimate goal for this road racing.

Overall it was a fun weekend, however it seemed like the 11 of us were always packed like wet sardines. We had 11 people in one van, then during the races the vans had 11 peoples wet clothes and people, and this made for a very tight wet squeeze. Also, the power at out motel went out, so 11 people were hanging out in a tiny hotel room with 2 double beds, however were not wet, but we had wet clothes drying everywhere. It is nice to be dry now.

As I look out the window now I do not see rain clouds or gusting winds, so lets hope the weather can stay like this for a little while, so next time we race we can actually catch some rays.