your streets belong to us...

The short version, by Dan Chabanov:

well another monster track down for the count.

people cheated. things were disorganized. felipe was wearing make up.

it was wrestle mania on bikes.

It was wonderful to see all the out of towners and laugh at all the rookies.

It was a good time. 

A looong version:

I was going for my third consecutive Monstertrack win this year, and felt great going into the race.  In 2008, I won a custom Squarebuilt from Lance and absolutely love that bike.  It handles amazingly in traffic and I feel so fast on it.  

photo by Kevin Dillard, Demoncats

This year’s race started at Affinity Cycles in Brooklyn and when I showed up, Grand St. was full of racers and bikes and photographers.  It was a great scene to roll into.  I registered, got my custom ‘Good Heather’ spokecard, and waited for the race to start, knowing that we wouldn’t be getting the manifest before the race, so there would be no chance to plot out a route or prepare.

photo by Kevin Dillard, Demoncats

We finally got rolling down Grand St. for a group ride over the Williamsburg bridge.  I was trying to talk Victor out of taking the car path, sure that this would just create unnecessary police interference and not wanting to start the race with them trying to break us up.  Victor was ready to get a ticket for it, and people started heading over the car path, so I followed, not knowing when the first spot would be announced and not wanting to miss out on it.  The ride over the bridge was really beautiful.

photo by Mike Green, BikeBlogNYC

 We took up the whole two outer lanes and I didn’t see a car the whole time.  The unobstructed mid-day view of Manhattan and Brooklyn was spectacular and it was nice to not have to climb that hill on the bike path!  We didn’t seem to create any chaos and it was probably the best way to get 130 bikers into the city.

photo by Kevin Dillard, Demoncats

The group headed south on Allen st. and stopped in the median at Grand.  

photo by Mike Green, BikeBlogNYC

Like everyone else, I had no idea what was going on and then I saw people scrambling to the center and people yelling ‘manifest!’  I ran to get my little slip of paper that said to go to 59th and 1st ave to get your first out of three manifests.

photo by Kevin Dillard, Demoncats

Racers took off up Allen, passing another group of people that had somehow gotten separated from us and had no idea what was going on.  Izumi had warned me to watch out for pedestrians, since it was the first warm day of the season, but there didn’t seem to be that many people out.

At 59th street, the checkpoint worker was being overwhelmed by adrenaline-fueled messengers for their first manifest.  I got mine and read the first line that said ‘Do all checkpoints in order.’  ’Ok, good,’  I thought.  ’I don’t have to think about routing this, I have no choice, I just have to do it how they’ve ordered it on the manifest.’  The first stop was 59th st. and Central Park South and the pack was still pretty thick when I got there.  It is hard to be a checkpoint worker, standing around waiting for something to happen, and then suddenly getting bombarded by a flood of intense racers, who need their manifest signed NOW!

photo by Kevin Dillard, Demoncats

The second checkpoint was 110th and 5th ave.  I hesitated for a minute, having four options to get up there.  I could have taken 5th ave. the wrong way, which would not have been fun for the entire length of the park, with buses, taxis and pedestrians crowding the way.  I could go through the park, but there’s a big hill to climb and I would probably have been on my own so would have no way of knowing pacing myself, and I always feel like I ride faster when I’m in traffic.  I could have also gone up Madison ave, but decided to ride up Central Park West since it borders the park and there’s less intersections to contend with.  There were a couple other racers going that way and we drafted off each other most of the way up.  I saw Yatika coming west across 110th st and thought there might be two different manifests happening.  Turns out a bunch of racers didn’t do the checkpoints in order.

After 110th and 5th, it was down to 73rd and 5th, and then across the park to Central Park West and 5th ave.  

Photo by Blaine of Brooklyn Bikes

That was it for the first manifest and then I headed to Columbus Circle to get my second manifest.  Whenever I race, I usually wind up holding my manifest in my hand because I don’t want to take the time to fold it and put it away, and I’m worried it will fall out of my hip pouch.  I had planned on keeping it up my sleeve, but that quickly turned into me half-folding, half-crumpling it up and putting it down my shirt.  It was the best place for quick access.  

photo by Kevin Dillard, Demoncats

At Columbus Circle, I got another manifest that had all downtown addresses on it.  Like the first manifest, this one said you had to do it in order.  I took off down Broadway for my first stop at 1 University Place, then it was over to the west village and 666 Greenwich Ave.  I used to live at 636 Greenwich Ave., so knew how to get there.  Next it was down to 17 Battery Place, which I could not find.  I had called Erik and Soraya and asked them to look it up for me, but I think Google maps listed two different locations so we were confused.  I finally found it and almost ran into a runaway skateboard as I was going up to get my manifest signed.

photo by Lucas Wheat

On my way to the Stone St. checkpoint, I heard something fall and realized my glasses fell out of my jersey pocket that was stuffed with GUs.  I couldn’t stop, but I was bummed to lose them.  There was no one at the Fulton and Water st. checkpoint so I kept going to the last spot at Attorney and Stanton.  I got a little confused trying to find it, but luckily had a map and got there.  Then it was off to 6th Ave. and Canal St.  The first slip of paper said to hand in all three of your manifests at the finish, so I was expecting to get another manifest on Canal St., but when I got there, they said that was it.  The wrong manifest had been handed out at Columbus Circle so we would up only doing two-thirds of the race.

I heard some rumblings of controversy over the men’s race, and that they were going to do a sprint to determine the winner, but I was more concerned with finding my glasses than watching the drama unfold.  Victor assured me that I had finished first woman and so I went back downtown, where I found my glasses lying in the exact same spot that they had fallen, completely unharmed. 

photo by Kevin Dillard, Demoncats

What a day!

Photo by Blaine of Brooklyn Bikes