After a Spring with plenty of race opportunities for the sprinters - from Grant's Tomb to Central Park to Orchard Beach - one of the few local races focused on more vertically inclined riders finally arrived in this past weekend's CRCA Bear Mountain Classic. And in a tradition several years in the running (see last year's race report) the weather was once again less than ideal for a long day on the bike at Harriman State Park. But before getting too deep in the details....

The Week That Was (TWTW) for To Be Determined

We will admit it: we spent most of the week watching Saturday's weather with a sense of impending dread as the forecast called for thunderstorms most of the day. While the lightning stayed away the early morning fields definitely experienced challenging conditions with steady rain and temperatures in the forties. Thankfully as the day rolled on the weather progressively improved for the longer races including the Elite Fields where Taylor Kuyk-White (Philadelphia Bike Expo) and Kevin Goguen (CRCA/Jamison Capital-Cannondale) took home championship titles. Elsewhere TBD snagged two top ten finishes from Colin Keaveney and Ted Teyber while the team contributed to our fair share of work consuming the piles of bagels and mountains of pizza that CRCA provided to all racers as part of their transition away from cash prizes for non-elite fields. We're still looking forward to another edition of the Bear Mountain Classic that features blue skies and warm temperatures but all things considered it was a pretty great day at the races. Stay tuned to the TBD Journal for a more complete recap and photo gallery later this week. (Bear Mountain Classic Results)

Elsewhere there was the usual weekday racing at FBF (Tuesday Results, Thursday Results) but for TBD the more memorable hours were spent pedaling out of New York City at rush hour on Friday for a camping focused take on the Bear Mountain Classic featuring the usual race to hit the campsite before sunset followed by several hours around the campfire roasting sausages and drinking beers. We'll be sharing more on this mini-adventure via our friends at Garneau in the coming weeks but needless to say there were no regrets to this more leisurely take on the Bear Mountain Classic given the tough racing conditions on Saturday.

Reading, Links and Random Facts

Thanks to a busy workload going into the Bear Mountain Classic we have a bit less in the reading and random facts arena than usual, but for transit geeks there are two links worth checking out:

• "For years, the Metropolitan Transportation Authority told us that rising ridership and overcrowding were to blame. Yet ridership actually stayed mostly flat from 2013 to 2018 as delays rose, and the authority recently acknowledged that overcrowding was not at fault. Instead, two decisions made by the M.T.A. years ago — one to slow down trains and another that tried to improve worker safety — appear to have pushed the subway system into its current crisis. And there’s no easy fix." How 2 MTA Decisions Pushed the Subway Into Crisis (New York Times)

• "I got a $98 ticket for a bike violation. I made a video in response illustrating how the problem that lead to the ticket should be rectified by the city - ticketing bikers won't address the public safety concern my proposal will" Dear NYPD, FIX THE PROBLEM instead of punishing Cyclists (Casey Neistat on Youtube)

Parting Shot

We'll close out the week that was with a big thank you to our own Ted Teyber for a massive workload over the past several weeks to insure the New York City cycling community could play bikes at Orchard Beach and Bear Mountain. THANK YOU TED!