Critical Mass Halloween Atlanta…a few pics

Wow, I drastically underestimated the turnout for this thing. Thats what happens when you live so far away from the city I guess. This little clip of the mass crossing Moreland doesn’t even show the whole group. I hope homeboy found his wife lol (42secs)…

Since I lost my camera in a “party mishap” earlier this year, all i had to grab snaps with was the iPhone, so the quality isn’t very good on these pics, but you can get an idea of how everyone was in the halloween spirit for the ride.

I couldn’t tell if this guy was running the full Rock Racing kit as a costume or if this is his normal riding gear.


AYHSMB southeast remix

Probably the best “in theme of the event” costume I saw…


There was a whole gang of smart phone icons…Angry Birds! Wish I could have gotten a pic of the whole group together…


Probably my fave costume was E.T and Elliot. Great job on the E.T. sculpture/model…the only way it could have been better were if she would been riding the actual Kuwahara E.T. BMX bike.

The ride was a blast, although I ran out of beer waaaay too early. Next year I’ll rig up some sort of way to bring more suds. One thing I thought was pretty rad was when the mass got out onto Moreland in East Atlanta and cruised up to Little Five Points. Since I don’t get to come to many of these events I have never been to one where such a long stretch of such a major road was infiltrated. I had some other things to do that night, so when we got to L5P I dropped off so I could ride back to Kirkwood since I had parked there, but the ride kept trucking along headed up towards Ponce and who knows where else. While I was riding away in the opposite direction I could hear all the ruckus from the crowd and the car horns from quite a distance away. I hope it went long and everyone had a great time.

If you only do one CM a year, Halloween is the one to do for sure.

The Keiran @ Dick Lane Velodrome 5/8/2010

Saturday evening Graham said “come to DLV and get yourself in a better mood”, so I packed up a cooler full of cold ones and headed that way. The final rounds of their first pro racing series were due to start about 6ish. Waaaay rad poster for the events this year:

The weather was fairly cool which made it a great evening to take in some racing. Bonus level:  hottie NPR interview babe-tron Graham was recorded by last time was spacing around again with her headphones on. I love her so much.

The racing was great! We got there in time to catch some of the young riders from Bicycle Little League doing their thing. Those kids really have the spirit and it is great to see people that young already into the racing scene. My only other experience seeing young riders like that was BMX racing at Oregon Ridge Park in Baltimore circa like 1983 or something.

The adult riders were caning it proper. I took my camera but for some reason the only shots I got of any racing were on the iPhone:

Speeds were HIGH and there were a few spills. Track racing is just freakin sick when you are there in person to witness it. My favorite rider of the day was this dude Spiderman, who was all kitted out as the web slinger.  He might have gotten discounted for the novelty gear and considered an also-ran if he would have just brought up the rear every race, but he was riding fairly aggressively which made the wacky kit seem all the more wicked.

The whole evening (and I suppose a bunch of qualifying earlier in the day but I could be wrong) lead up to a really kick ass final. Here is a little vid of the final laps:

Please excuse my vertically oriented iPhone vid quality, I did the best I could. What I really want you to see if the energy of the crowd. People were hanging over the rail banging on the boards cheering on the riders…the whole mess coming to a huge crescendo with the that song from ROCKY running in the background.

While I was spacing around I grabbed a couple of snaps of this really interesting vehicle, which is used to motor pace the starts of the Kieran races.

Can’t help but wonder if it came with the Rock Shox or if someone did a little -upgrade-. I noticed that the driver was pedaling the entire time even though the motor seemed to be delivering the power. You think you can push a gear this tall?

One other thing I noticed was that the speed this thing would travel at seemed remarkable consistent. It may be diferent when you are actually on the thing, but from the bleachers it looked like there was almost no variation in speed once it got going, which is probably important when leading out a pace line of bikes that cannot stop or slow down quickly.

All in all it was huge fun, and Graham was right…it did get me into a better mood.

add me on twitter @RobertAshton

Go Fast, Turn Left

The Festival of Speed at Dick Lane Velodrome is always fun, and the third and final for the year is coming up next weekend. There’s everyone from local kids (Bicycle Little League) to big-time pros racing. Looks like there’s a fierce showdown shaping up between Team Type 1 and Jittery Joe’s. Be there!

Click the pic for the full PDF flier.

Tour de Misnomer

The Georgia Cup Tour of Atlanta is coming up next week, which I was pretty excited about until I realized that it would be in Atlanta as much as it would be in California or France. That is, not at all.

Stage 1 – Buford
Stage 2 – Buford
Stage 3 – John’s Creek
Stage 4 – Monroe
Stage 5 – Monroe
Stage 6 – Gainesville
Stage 7 – Buford

Of the 7 stages, absolutely none are in Atlanta. The closest it gets is John’s Creek, about 25 miles from Atlanta. The furthest is Gainesville, about 55 miles away. While I’m sure some people consider these places to be in “The Metro Atlanta Area”, those people like to spend at least 2 hours in their cars every day driving to and from the city. These towns don’t even border on Atlanta. Heck, they don’t even border on other towns that border Atlanta.

Yes, I’m an elitist city boy with a disdain for the burbs. But seriously, if your event doesn’t even come close to the city, you don’t get to name it after the city. And while I’m ranting… you couldn’t find more than 4 places to host your 7 stages? Must be fun “touring” the same little town 3 times.

Jump Jam 2008

Jump Jam 2008 date announced!

I don’t know why they chose this image for the flyer, because the pictured terrain looks nothing like Central Park(GA), where the event will actually be. Just because the flyer is a sham doesn’t mean the event will be. It should be freakin awesome. Last year people had a blast from what I read about it. I’ll be there taking photos. You do not want to miss this! May 18th, mark it down on your calendars…

Hit the RealityBikes web site for the full info…URL is on the flyer.