Geeky Yet Waterproof

Last night I competed in a bike race at the velodrome for the first time. They call it Fast Twitch Friday, because it consists of mostly sprint races.

I did two races: the first one, called 10 Lap Progressive, is a ten lap race where you get points every time you win a lap. The first lap is worth one point, the second lap is worth two points, the third lap is worth three points, etc. Whoever has the most points at the end wins.

I didn’t do very well in that race, mostly because I didn’t really know what was going on, and one guy got way up ahead of the pack at the beginning, so there was really no point in anybody racing unless they could catch him. But I did better in the next race, which was a 12 lap “regular” race. There were 13 people racing, and I came in 4th — but the youngest one besides me was 26, and they were almost all bike messengers.

I was scheduled to have a third race, but it got cancelled because somebody had a really nasty wipeout. She was going over 30mph when she lost control about 40 feet before the finish line. She slid about 20 feet down on the track, and it looked like she broke her collarbone and had a concussion.

Unfortunately we didn’t get a video, but if we had, it would probably be worth 1000+ views on YouTube.