3's a Charm and done. Tour of Batenkill

Sweeping the last bit of dirt, grime, used cliff shots packages and dirty socks outta my car. Also getting the last notes of Batenkill finished off.

1. I'm sorta a race number freak. Some numbers look and feel heavy/slow/fast to me. 569 is medium, now if it was 549 that would be faster, and 517 that would be blazing. 595 or 585 slowwww!.

2. The course: The dirt is not bad, not bad at all. There is a good hard corner on one of the dirt down hills you hit overly fast, I'm not exaggerating, and plenty of dudes and dudettes bit it here, and hard. Think broken bones, punctured lungs, concussions, and helicopter rides to the hospital. With close to 1500 riders hitting that corner you know its going to eat some of us up.

3. Entry fee $45. Not too bad but the pay out $500-10 deep-125 100 70 50 30 25 25 25 25 25 for a field of 125 is low. That's $5125 to the race.

4. Great run race, easy sign in, friendly people, nice towns and just in general cool vibe.

5. No results. You might want to take a friend who can double up and give you a feed, then zip over to the finish line to count where you come in at.

6. No marshals on the road, no motos, limited wheel support and no sweep vehicle. You could make some good dough on the side if you rented a van and drove the course pickin' up stranded racers and charge them $10 or so for a lift back to town. There is a yellow line rule, but your only danger from breaking it is a head on with a pick-up truck coming up the road at you while you try to jump the bunch and move up because your pack riding skills are so piss poor its the only way you can pass anybody.

7. Here is my best idea! How about when you buy/renew your racin' license you get a timing chip with it and use it at all USAC racin' events. PLEASE no more stupid outdated video camera and penciled in results. Promoters would have to use this system to qualify to be a USAC event. Just send a little email or call over to them: https://www.usacycling.org/news/user/story.php?id=171

8. With so many out of towners how about a neutral feed zone, with cappuccino and cookies, maybe a cold bottle of water too.

9. Dudes add a crit on Sunday and you'll have 1000 or so racers spending the night and add some more mullah's for your race fund. Its quite a drive for most of us. I want more racing for less driving.

I left the race feeling like it was a one and done for me, already, I can't wait to sign up to do it next year. cheers, dlowe.