King Kog: March 2011

Last weekend hundreds of people stood out in the freezing temperatures to race and spectate this years Red Hook Criterium. We were amongst the crowd cheering on friends. We had our money on good buddy Dan Chabanov who won last year. It shook out pretty quickly, after about 3 or 4 laps (20 total) the field broke into 3 serious groups with lots of slower riders and the immediately shelled bringing up the rear. Dan was in the lead group from then til the finale, trading pulls to stay away and always looking fresh, no open mouth breathing, no sweat! Austin Horse valliantly tried to bridge to the front group solo a few times but ended up going down coming into the hairpin a bit too hot... The field was peppered with pros this year and the course was smooth and fast not technical or cobled which probably favored the racers and ruled out the messengers. By the time it was 3 laps to go it got brutally fast and most of the field left on the course except the first two groups were lapped and pulled off the course. Dan was still doing his share of the work rotating to the front coming into 2 to go as a couple of guys tried to go off the front solo but were reeled back in after less than 100 meters. The excitement built with the bell lap and then there were just three careening toward the line, Dan was in third position but all three were less than a wheel length apart meters from the line. In the split second before the line Dan threw his bike just beating Mountain Khakis pro Neil Bezbek by mere inches in one of the finest amature sprints i have ever witnessed! Track sprinter Al Barouh came third also by inches. Honorable mention goes out to our homie Chas from SF coming in in eighth position.