The First Annual

West point, as it turns out, is a hilly, barren area that is prone to high winds and gray skies. Upon arrival at Camp Anawana, we were herded away from the main setup area (and, more importantly, the SaniJohns) and relegated to a picturesque lakeside that was in no way close to the race course, although we did escape the fate of some unluckier later-rising schools who were placed somewhere further along our very narrow, windy street. We easy-up'd the Easy Up and the Hard Up (and Lonely) just in time to realize that it was very windy and these things were probably going to blow away at the slightest 30 mile per hour gust, so we hung bikes on them. This plan had mixed results. The Team Time Trial got underway, where we were excited to experience the axiom "either you're having a good day or there's a headwind." We were also excited to experience that nice hill right at the turnaround, netting us a twelth and twentysecond in D and a toasty little fifth in C.

The road race had another really fantastic headwind that kept the group together, which was great because I didn't have to do any work and everybody else slowed down dramatically. There was a hill by the finish line that the race flyer promised would "test [one's] inner warrior," which turned out to be my testicles who had by this point taken up residence somewhere around my stomach to escape the cold. My inner warriors passed the test with flying colors though, putting me in fifth, a position I never thought I'd be in (other positions I have lost hope of ever being in: sexual ones). The teammates filed in with a couple of top twenty finishes and Will once again deciding he'd had enough of this racing thing so he flatted as an excuse to stop. On the last lap, a crash happened towards the end of course, prompting a "Someone's down! Attack! Attack!" from a rider, which is kinda douchey but a good way to win, so it comes down to what's important to you, I guess. Peter got caught up in a crash and C, and Jesse, not getting caught up in a crash, netted a top 10 finish.After some well-earned victory beverages, Peter captained the molester van through the winding streets of camp, stopping for a wildly gesticulating marshall who was, like the A riders, on something.

This being the 1 year anniversary of the cycling team, like, this race specifically, 1 year, it has come to be that we can now say things like "annual." Like the Pho last week, Jake once again lobbied heavily for a food group, this time for the 2nd Annual Family-sized Stromboli Eating Event. A BYOB restaurant, which prompted a "can you even do that?" from some of our number (yes, you can) and a stromboli that was less the size of a family and more the size of my lower leg. Only Jesse and Jake stepped up to the plate, with Chris and Zach sharing one like normal people. Jake challenged for a race, to which Jesse calmly replied that he wasn't racing, then proceeded to eat the hell out of some stromboli. Jake couldn't even finish it, the big baby, and as such became the subject of heckling not only of the team but also our waitress and some guy who sold us on dessert pizza.

We went back to the hotel, where some people napped and others watched Black Dog, a movie in which Patrick Swayze drives a big rig and so does Meat Loaf. Before long, we decided it was time to eat AGAIN, so we went to a place our team had gone to last year AGAIN and we ordered some food, none of which happened to be Stromboli. Jake once again couldn't finish his food, but nevertheless ordered some ice cream afterwards, at Rita's. Peter took the Sly Glutton prize by requesting free samples for everybody, and then eating them all himself. When we got back to the hotel, some of us went to sleep and others watched The Flying Scotsman, because watching a cycling movie with strong suicidal overtones seemed appropriate for a hill climb.

The next morning brought us to West Point and the hill climb on a godforsaken pile of rock that was deemed by one of my teammates as "not too steep," although I think when he said "not too" he actually meant "unreasonably." Waiting in line, I immediately had second thoughts about my task and, well, it turned out poorly for me, as this artist's rendering shows:



Never have I wanted to quit something so intensely in my life. Jake once again lost to Jesse, I lost to just about everybody and Peter ended up beating Joe Kopena. About this point, the weather decided to get nice, so I dropped the tights and hit the crit course, which was just as windy as the previous day had been; the river had whitecaps. The crit itself was quite nice, with RIT rolling an incredibly deep field and finishing very nicely at the front. At one point, on the back stretch, we were hit by a huge gust of wind, to which I commented "I wish I got blown like this back at school!" Nobody around me thought it was funny. Jake took a couple of pretend Primes thanks to some guy with a cowbell and the finish was a dirty little thing where I, like everybody else, got boxed into a poor finishing position, but I still ended up fifteenth behind Jake, Will, and Rashid. For intro, Chris pulled the first lap hard and fell off the pace after that, which'll learn him good, and in C, both our guys had excellent rides, with Jesse just missing top 10 and Peter pulilng a couple of prime points. Deciding that we were too deep in D, Will made the big jump up to C on the shoulders of a nice run down of his own teammate's breakaway and a grudge match finish between him and Jake. C can have you, D don't want you.

After working my tan on my fabulous muscles for a bit and pretty much taking a day in the park, we set off towards home, stopping at a Chinese place in run-down neighborhood wherein we witnessed a man demanding an eggroll the next time he ordered from there. We mostly slept on the way home, taking a break so that Anthony could pee since he still hasn't mastered Peter's art of urinating in Vitamin Water bottles and leaving them places.