• The bouncy castle was actually not only huge, but incorporated a rooms, passage ways and stuff scary enough that I wasn't about to let my 21-month old go in there by himself.
• Then there was a slide. Pretty tame, but required some climbing on soft squishy surfaces which is harder than you might expect; it was the only thing Peter and I dared try.
• Then there was this thing that was straight out of those goof-ball shows where there are spinning things trying to knock your ass into a moat. Except this was a wild, motorized gesticulating spinning arm whose sole purpose in life was to knock the snot out of your little punk kids. Awesome.
• Then there was something that was out of, I don't know, American Ninja? Two kids start at one end and fight their way through obstacles, climb up inflatable walls and see who comes out the other end first.

Okay, onto other great family stuff.

• Actual permanent playground.
• LOTS of port-o-johns. Plus indoor flush toilets, WITH baby changing station! No nasty dumps. (pun intended)
• Lots of free food. Every Turkey Hill product you can imagine, plus chips, hot dogs, popcorn, whole loaves of bread (weird, but true), fruit (if you could tear yourself away from cups of salted caramel icecream). And it just kept on coming.
• Kids running races. Free. Peter pinned on his first number and took part in the 5 and under category.
• Free t-shirt to pre-registered riders.
• Kind of hilarious mascot races with actual real mascots from, for example, the Philly Phillies. The Fanatic, stole some 40+ racer's bike, without missing a beat, in full costume and rode around in circles. I was impressed.
• Not too far from the race was an entire higher end strip outlet mall that had every kid clothing store you ever heard of. Sarah is already planning to not buy any summer clothes for Peter until this race next year.
• Giant cow that was cool to look at and the kids loved climbing all around it.
  

Now I know what most of you are probably saying..."I couldn't care less about bouncy castles and baby crawling races" Fair enough, but let me tell you about the race itself. Don't let the crashes make you think this is some half-assed operation. The organization of this race is tight.

• Registration indoors.
  
• Multiple tables with release forms, daily programs, blown up google map images of the race courses with feed zone and danger zones highlighted.
• Two lines for each category. With clear to read signs above the people manning the stations. One for pre-reg, one for day-of. No lines, no waiting. Which makes you wonder, what the hell the Housatonic Hills race folks were doing all those years.
  
• With the exception of one brief stretch, FULL ROAD/CLOSED COURSE. No yellow line rule.
• Lots of marshals in all the right places.
• Challenging windy, rolling course. At one point me and another rider rolled up to Ed Beamon (DS of plenty of pro cycling teams, and actual kind of bad-ass racer himself) who was dropped from the Pro field, and we exchanged a few words. Ed said, "Yeah, this course is kind of relentless." And that was the last I heard of him. I dropped him on the next roller and didn't see him again until passed me latched onto the 3/4 field.
• GREAT opportunity for KCC studs to race a seriously tough Pro 1/2/3 field (the top 10 was littered with names like Olympian Bobby Lea, former pro Scott Ziwanski). Sometimes it's good to get out of your comfort zone and get kicked in the head repeatedly. I'm sure a race report is coming but Adam seemed to hold his own pretty well before the crash and subsequent delays and neutralizations.

Okay, that's it for now. Congrats to all the KCC racers out there. Especially Erika on her hard fought 4th place. I think all of the KCC riders who participated were rewarded with not only tired legs, but valuable learned lessons that will carry them on to bigger successes at future races. Or at least that's the sense I got during our post race stuff your face with ice cream chat session.

-Marc, the very fact you mentioned the episode means that you know you fucked up.  Should have rinsed the guy and jumped across.  Sorry I can't be more supportive of your decision.  There are absolutely no friends in road racing.  The ONLY exception is the grupetto.  Then it is just makes you a total knob if you attack or sprint for the finish line.  You've been racing long enough to know the score. Hugs. 

-I have to reiterate what Marc said about being on closed roads.  A real treat and that made this a real pleasure to ride. I don't think I have ever been on a closed road course on the highway before.  Great fun.

I jumped in the P123 race at this event.  I have done a few of these higher category road races to know the pattern.  They tend to go super nuts for the first 45-60 minutes until the break gets established.  Then, thankfully, everyone calms down as the break builds up a gap then eventually gets tired.  The last third of the race then goes nuclear as you get the triple whammy of the field deciding to catch the break, the field then attacking after catching the break, then the ramp up for the finish.
So, the race goes of and duly it starts hectic.  After 3 laps or so the break eventually goes.  Perfect.  This, for those who may not know, is NOT like the park-break is definitely not on the agenda, too hard.  In one of these races I would rather gouge out my toenails with a rusty spoon then be in the break. Screw that for a bag of chips.  I am now a happy camper in the wheels. So, the field lets up for a little bit and that's great. Unfortunately, the course itself was hard.  It was more or less a rectangle and if you were not climbing up ramps which were long and steep enough to register as a "hill" then you were racing with a significant crosswind.  This was kind of like a red rag to a bull (the bulls being the stronger guys).  So, every incline or on the longer stretches the field was full gas.  Often there'd be breaks in the field (which started at 80 riders) on the longest side with strong cross-winds, with 2 or 3 echelons forming.  However, this side ended with a long descent so the group reformed.
This meant that the break was caught after 5 laps (of a 9 lap race-too soon).  That's BS.  Aint nobody got time for that she'at.  Not totally sure why we the break was caught.  Don't get me wrong, was a hard race, so they probably blew up to some extent (think there were 5-8 of them).  But, we were getting time checks and at some point they had 1:20 on us.  If we were catching them I am surprised we didn't just slow up.
On the whole, the race was tough.  Then, however, on lap 6-7 out of 9 the field was totally imploded.  I have never seen a field get destroyed like this.  Usually, when a race is hard people get pinged off the back a couple at a time.  Not this time, I reckon that the field was still about 60-70 at this point.  Scott Zwizanski (didn't know him until the race-rides for Optum) flies up the side of the field on a climb with a crosswind.  Boom, puts down the megawatts and within 20 seconds the field was strung out in 4 echelons, up a longest hill in the race with a stiff side wind.  Boom.  Game over.  I was third group on the road in a matter of seconds, not as I was dropped per se but because I was sitting in the group near the back, i.e. my position at that point was total shit.  I was not expecting anything to happen until we hit the Wall for the first time in 6 miles.  That was that. Wanted to ride it in with the third group as there was only 15 miles left.  We then caught the leaders when they we neutralised by the 3/4 crash.  After 45 minutes standing around the referee only let the first group finish their race, arguing that the day was behind schedule and that the later groups were not in the mix anyway (odd reasoning and decision IMO).  So, in the end, didn't get pulled, didn't get a DNF, they just only recorded the results of the front group of 30 who they let finish. 

I put this up as I never really thought too much about the fact that at some points in a p123 field on a tough road race, you can be totally defenceless if you are not racing right.  The way the ducks lined up: side wind, hill, my positioning in last 3rd of field, I was never, ever going to be able to respond if a move went.  I was in the wrong place to respond in anyway at all.  Next time, I will assess where on the course I am most vulnerable and plan accordingly.  Fascinating to watch and be a part of.    

Adam said:

This race is unique as it is almost exclusively on closed roads.  You should do it. 

Adam said:

This race is unique as it is almost exclusively on closed roads.  You should do it. 

Adam Fabian said:

Is this race worth it for the 4s? Kind of short for the distance we have to travel to get there.