Made a quick stop at Stop and Shop to score some water and a pad-lock for the trailer. High-tailed it to NYC. We watched videos on someone's iPhone, laughed at Pete and his cucumber, and generally had a good time. Got to the park around 8am-ish. Checked out the dirt jumps and ran down the downhill section to meet Jaime from NYMTB and get set up.
About 30min of being there, unloading, etc, Pete decided to hit the jump park, but the park hit back. See the description in the previous entry. Here's a photo:
-has a Ghostship shirt ever looked more badass? I think not.
-at least he's got a hot nurse taking care of him....
Pete update #2-still in high spirits. He DOES NOT have a broken neck as someone in his family led us to believe. He's got some bleeding on the brain, but should be home tomorrow or Wednesday. Fucking trooper indeed.
With Pete down, our friend Erik stepped up to rip the pump-track and Dave took over the Super-D section. We did a seeding run first, which figured out where the teams would start. (From Matt's perspective:) "I remember watching Mike come in hot on the heels of the downhiller prior to him, I got so amped I wound up pre-releasing out of one of my pedals. In an effort to make up the lost seconds (which felt like and eternity), I went out WAAAAAY too hard. Almost ate it around the first corner, and almost passed out at the top. Vision blurred, hearing was fuzzy, my whole body felt like it was going to collapse."
Back at the tent we found out we were in first with the fastest time. The seeding run put the team to start last on the finals. Everyone put in an amazing effort the second time round, conserving energy where they had spent too much before, and generally killing it. The team came out on top, putting about 30 sec on the second place team.
After the race, Doug took off to Dirty Jersey to pick up a new truck, and the rest of the crew packed up, and set off in search of The Knitting Factory in Tribeca. Navigating a full-size Chevy Suburban with an 8 foot trailer through downtown NYC, on a Saturday evening is no easy feat, but Mike made it look like it was his job! Some highlights include some g'd-out guy stopping in front of the truck as it was moving, jumping out of the way, coming up to the passenger window and asking "Yo! You gonna stop?!" To which Matt and Mike replied (in unison) "No!", finding parking for both the Suburban AND trailer, getting lost, getting found, and finding where we needed to be. Lots of pretty girls, tourists, and shopping....amidst and truck full of smelly bike geeks...a rad way to spend an evening for sure.
We found the Knitting Factory, parked our bikes @ Gotham Bikes (free bike valet service) watched a great video and had our team presented to a room full of fellow riders. Doug met us there to partake in the fun. A good time was had by all. Thanks to Jamie and the whole NYCMTB crew for putting on an amazing race, the other teams that we had the honor of sharing a race with, and the riders who make up the Ghostship collective.
You can check out Matt's photos here.
Couple of videos coming soon.
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