Bike race!!!

There was a four day stage race bike race in my city this weekend!! It was AWESOME!!! My friend's husband was the race director and he did a fantastic job pulling it all together. This was the 50th year of the bike race. I volunteered for all four days. I can't even tell you how inspiring it was to watch all the racing. I hope to get my thoughts in order and write something about what it meant to me when I have a little more time. For now, some pictures!

Day one was the time trial. There were 8 groups of racers on each day - two groups of women, 6 groups of men and one each of pros. For the time trial the racers just went out about 4ish miles, made a sharp u-turn and then came back at balls-to-the-wall effort. It had rained all morning so when I got there for my volunteer shift they positioned me near the u-turn to warn riders to go around the cone.
Some racers were either really fast or the person in front of them was kind of slow so they caught one another. I think most people think that bike racers ride funny looking bikes and wear funny looking outfits. These riders are wearing aerodynamic helmets and outfits, have aerodynamic wheels and have aerodynamic positioning on their bikes.
Day two was a circuit race around my college. The 8 groups went around a 3.5ish mile loop between 7 and 25 times, depending on their group. It was pretty awesome to see a pack of 100+ riders buzzing down the street!
The finish for this race was almost at the top of a super-steep hill. I've run up this hill and its a real lung buster. Just after the finish was a sharp turn so unless it was the last lap positioning was very important. At the bottom of the hill was another sharp curve and there were quite a few accidents in the earlier races.
Day three was a road race out by the local ski mountain. The 8 groups of riders did between 4 and 11 laps of an 11 mile loop. There were a couple of steep downhills and the finish was again, on a punishing hill. I think this picture is of the finish line (?). If you look toward the back of the line of cyclists you'll see a bunch of cars with wheels and bikes on the roof. The pro men and pro women teams had their own support vehicles that followed them. If a rider got a flat they didn't have to take the time to change it themselves; the support vehicle just threw on a new wheel.
About a mile from the start (the start was on a downhill) was the first turn. I was stationed about a hundred yards from this spot making sure vehicles didn't get in the way of the race.
Day four (the last day) was criterium around the downtown of my town. It was about a 1.1 mile loop that cyclists went around between 17 and 55 times, depending on the group they were in. This race went literally by my apartment so it was pretty cool to take a break from my volunteering to run into my apartment for a rest! I believe this is a picture of the pro women's race.
The pro men's race was so much fun to watch! They did 55 loops but they were raring to go from the get go. Groups kept trying to break off but the peloton kept pulling them back in. This picture is of a break away. Towards the end of the race the men were flying and only taking about 2 minutes to do the loop. Also toward the end, the riders kept blowing up all over the place, destroying their legs and dropping out. In the middle of the race they asked me to help hand out water to riders who needed it and it was pretty terrifying to be holding bottles of water out to cyclists passing withing a foot of me at nearly 30mph! I felt happy and lucky that I didn't cause an accident doing this :-)
The race was really really fun to watch and volunteer for. I miss being part of athletics and being part of something larger than myself. Maybe next year . . .