Night Racers

Strange photo, if I do say so myself. It was taken at night, with a flash. The camera couldn’t keep up with some of the fast-moving riders, so they appear somewhat ethereally in the image. Those are not stars, but bugs illuminated by their proximity to the flash. This picture was taken at the end of a rather frenetic Friday. Anne and I went to the opening venue of this week’s Gateway Cup bicycle races.

Gateway is billing itself as the premier crit or criterium bicycle race venue in the nation. A crit race differs from the more conventional Tour de France style bicycle race in that the racers repeatedly circle on a small, about a mile long course. This makes for a much more audience friendly experience.

There were plenty of pro bicycle racing team’s vans out last night. The venue was Lafayette Square and of the four this one is probably my favorite, although tomorrow’s Tour of the Hill is the most venerated. First off, it occurs at night, while all of the rest are during the day and it’s the first one of the weekend.

We arrived in time to catch the end of the men’s Masters and stayed to watch the kid’s races which are always a hoot. They gradate the start line for the kid’s races. Closest to the finish line were the Big Wheelers and they stepped back by age from there. For the first couple of races parents could at first walk and then had to run to keep up with their cycling prodigy. After that helicopter parents had to ride a bike to keep up, which led to calls of foul, “That guy looks older than eight, he has a beard!”

After the kids, we ducked into a bar. We went to Square One Brewery where we had to wait. We did get to see Karie on her birthday! We ended up being seated in the bar and were treated to dueling TVs. One had the Cardinals on, who were losing to the Pirates and the other one had Michigan State beating up on Western Michigan. While waiting, we each had a Light Squared, a light beer which Anne observed was equal to energy over mass.