Sunday, July 3, 2011

The Great Bike Race

I had a unexpected and fun experience tonight. I happened to be present when a big bike race was just starting, like a minute after I got there. And these guys looked like professionals, even including skin tight clothes with their sponsors' logos on them.

It was going to be 75 minutes ... later it was a matter of a certain amount of laps ... and they're off!

The bicyclists were super fast, so I looked up and they were gone. But they're going around the corner down there, then up the next street, then they're cutting on to the original street a couple blocks up, then they're finishing a figure 8, and here they come again down the straightaway. Very fast, with each lap being around a mile in two minutes.

Like I said, it was a lot of fun. Of course it would've been more fun if I knew any of the riders, but by the time the race was started it was too late to introduce myself. They whooshed by, stirring up quite a pleasant breeze as they passed.

I thought at first I would be there for the start, then I'd never know who won, but it was so fun that I stayed for the entire thing. And guess what, I don't know who won! I saw him cross the finish line, saw his number, and heard the announcer say his name ... but I've already forgotten the details.

For a while, in the first half of the race, I was keeping track of the leaders as they went by. The first lap I noted, the three leaders were 2, 50, and 53. The next lap went 69, 2, 10, 53. So you can see 2 and 53 were doing pretty well. Then, how about the next lap: 22, 23, 25, 26, all 20s; this would be a good way to come up with lottery numbers. I just wanted to mention the next lap, 5, 24, and 8. I mention it because 5 was doing extremely well for a while after this. Seriously. At one point 5 was 19 seconds in front of everyone else. Then it was 12 seconds, 9, 3 or 4, and finally he was in the pack someplace.

[The account and description of this race is the sole property of this blog and may not be used in any way without the express written permission of me.]

Finally it was all over, and it was an exciting finish, with the ultimate leader coming in first.

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