NYC Bridge Battle & Bike Film Festival

May 15, 2005

Think about brutality. Think about 5 bridges in under an hour. Think about riding against traffic on the West Side Highway. Think about car accidents, head on collisions, and Ho's kid making you do 10 freakin' pushups at the top of the Williamsburg Bridge - smack dab in the middle of the race! Cute kid, Ho. Cute kid. I really liked that part.

Think about the cynical weatherman being dead wrong for two weeks in a row, also! It was a beautiful weekend for an alleycat, and a beautiful weekend for Brendt to close down 2nd St. in front of Anthology Film Archives for the 5th Annual Bicycle Film Festival. About 50 riders showed up at 23rd & the West Side Highway to take a trip through Manhattan, Brooklyn, and Queens - over the Brooklyn, Manhattan, Williamsburg, Pulaski, and Queensboro bridges. Lest there be any opportunity to slack off, the organizers ensured that all checkpoints would be at the tops of the bridges. As far as I was concerned, going downtown was the best way to start off. That meant hitting the West Side Highway - but unless you hit that light, you were gonna be riding against traffic for a while. I didn't hit that light. So for 15 blocks, a group of us hammered downtown into 45 m.p.h. traffic. That part, I honestly did like.

Of course, it didn't seem to help anyone at all, because the top three finishers headed uptown. They're lucky I flatted though, cuz I totally would've beaten them. You listening, Speedy?!? I'm coming after you...........See, the best part about running this website is that I can talk shit as much as I want. There's no way I'm gonna catch Speedy. Or Zach or Felipe for that matter. They freakin' call him Speedy for Chrissakes! That's no accident!

Speaking of fast people, another honorable mention goes to Zach "forever our Jan Ullrich" Blackburn, the guys at Trackstar call him. He was the first guy I saw from our race coming at me, so I figured he (or Carlos or Todd in front of me) had it all sealed up. We're all waiting for you to stomp us, Zach. And I know when you do, it's going to be monstrous.

Afterwards, the block in front of Anthology was closed off for BMX events, Track Events, and all-around bike revelry. Charlotte & Hugo won trackstands. Alex won skids. Someone won bike polo I assume, but I don't even know if anyone was keeping score.

Our normal photographer had the day off, so you're going to have to make do with the amateur hack photos I took with my camera.

FINAL RESULTS

1	Speedy
2	Zach
3	Felipe
4	Carlos
5	Native American #112??? (I don't know. I got these results from Carlos)
6	Todd
7	Squid
8	Hugo
9	Philip
10	Alex