Athens Twilight?

What light? It was pretty darn dark! Plus, for a good portion of the race I was going so hard I couldn’t see straight anyhow ;-) But let’s start at the beginning. On Thursday, we made our way from Blue Ridge down to Athens, Georgia. Friday got a bit stressful because we had the “Grid Qualifiers” in the afternoon and a PR/ promotion-thing at 1:30 pm. We went to an elementary school and talked to a bunch of first to third graders about bikes, bike racing and bike safety. It was really cool because the kids were really interested in what we said and asked a ton of questions. To top it all off, we let them walk through the trailer… fun, fun, fun.

After this we hastened over to the race venue to do our qualifiers. Athens Twilight is a pretty crazy race and because it is the first race of the US Crit series the hold the qualifiers to determine the staging position. This position is pretty important, as the race is so fast that it is hard to move up; also, it is easier to stay out of trouble. So, what they did was to put eight guys on compu-trainers and make them race six laps of the course as a time trail. It was pretty hard but I managed to come in second of my heat and 15^th overall. I didn’t make the finals but got a spot in the second row for the race! Sweet! Peter did really well too, finishing 18^th overall.

Saturday was race day. We started at 9 pm, in the dark. The atmosphere was awesome. The spectators were standing some 5 deep and it was just crazy. I love college towns ;-) Anyways, the race was fast (some 31 mph average) for 1 hour and 40 minutes. I managed to hold my ground and stayed out of trouble. I avoided a couple of crashes but got caught in the last and all important crash of the day. With three laps to go I was sitting somewhere in the top 25 and some guys about 5 spots in front of me decided to take a soil-sample in turn one: bikes flying left and right, the smell of burned rubber in the air and the college kids at the side going crazy. I managed to stay upright somehow but still had to get off my bike and jump over heaps of bikes and bodies to get back on my bike. I ended up chasing for the rest of the race because I just didn’t want to get lapped so close to the end. I haven’t seen any results yet but I should have come in somewhere in the top 50. That’s cool because that’ll mean some points for the overall and better staging position for next race, tomorrow in Beaufort, SC.

So that was my first Athens Twilight. It was hard but a great experience. Next up is Beaufort. Looking forward to that. Hopefully, we’ll have internet access for the rest of the week, so I’ll try to keep you updated.