Cold and wet in New Haven

This week, Sean K, Tom S, and myself were representing UMBRC at Yale's race in New Haven, CT. It was cool to have a van with just the three of us, because it meant the bikes could stay warm and comfortable inside on the wet and cold drive there.

We stayed at a Hampton Inn, which was by far the nicest hotel the team's ever stayed at. There was a continental breakfast every morning (including "D+D Egg and Cheese" style egg circles and frosted flakes, yum) and magic comforters on the beds, not to mention lots of entertainment solutions. Tom and Sean wrestled a lot too.

There was a mostly uphill TT on Saturday (again with this?), but once again, I did better than I expected, finishing 40th out of 58. Tom and Sean did admirably at 22nd and 26th of 49 respectively in the B race.

It had started raining toward the end of the TT and while we were all sitting in the van, the temps dropped, the rain picked up, and it got windy to boot. Even New Hampshire raised Bryan (photo courtesy Jason G.) would have found the weather unpleasant. We went to Friendly's.

There, we discovered sprinkle-vision, which is a space age technology I'm not sure I'm at liberty to talk about. We also got a Umass maroon suit jacket at Salvation Army with one arm inexplicably shorter than the other.

The next day's crit was dry, which is good, though it was still chilly. We all had decent results with Tom and Sean getting 24th and 30th respectively in the B race, and yours truly getting 36th of 55 in the C race.

Yale reduced the entry fee for ECCC riders to do the USCF cat3/4 race later in the day so Sean and I signed on to do it. As it got later and later and the temperature got lower and lower, our enthusiasm was waning, and the Umass boys formed a plan. Kamikaze attacks to make things interesting. Sean wasn't feeling it early on and dropped out, leaving me in the race to attack relentlessly. I used up all my energy after like 9 attacks, and finished 25th, but hey, lots of pictures of me off the front, so that's something. The race finished with a remarkable 13 DNFs of 39 starters and UVM/Newton's own Jesse Chebot took the W. Congrats old boy. And sorry about the peanut butter.

New on the blogroll (right) this week is 24 Hour Toons, where they give people a topic and 24 hours to make a film about the topic. Very cool.

For this week's video, I'm putting up a short by CalArts alums Alex Hirch and Nick Butera. You can also check out Nick's "CalArts song", but I warn you, it will get stuck in your head.