Dan Action

Pool Party June 10, 2009

Well, here in Philly the best harbinger of summer comes in the form of the bike race, the Liberty Classic. This is the race that used to be the determiner of the U.S. pro. It is a time where a huge part of the city shuts down and fans, drunks, and drunk fans head to the race course to indulge and watch some world class racing on the very streets we ride every day.

Leading up to race day, there are events on top of events going on at various shops all over town. Meet this team, ride this bike kind of times. At Bicycle Therapy, we were lucky to have served as the service course for Alex W. and Ed N. from SRAM for the better part of the week. They were also followed a few days later by the SRAM Neutral Support crew. Butch and Bernard came to spend some time at the shop which was absolutely excellent.

These folks were a joy to work around and chat with. Especially after a bombarding visit from some of the folks at Shimano, Alex’s calm and quiet way of explaining their various gear was heartily welcome. Add that to Ed’s meticulous breakdown of Sram’s engineering and super dedication to rider and customer service, I just can’t figure out why I’d buy another component from some other manufacturer. Not to mention their stuff, including the new, super-hot, Force group, works so incredibly well.

Friday came with an open house party with our SRAM friends and the OUCH/ Maxxis team as our guests of honor. The house was absolutely packed. Lee, Therapy’s owner, had done a fantastic job arranging beer and food for the throngs of folks in the shop. The OUCH team were fantastic and gracious guests. Their attitude even whilst being packed into a room with a bunch of half-cut cycling fans and amatuer racers was still overwhelmingly positive. Nice work guys.

Pretty much every shop in Philly and Jersey shuts down on race day. Most shops can be found popping up tents on the course somewhere and firing up the grills. It’s a day of drinking and cajoling with friends and acquaintances.

The racing was fantastic as usual. High Road pretty much took everyone to town by winning in the women’s race and going 1&2 in the men’s.

There’s plenty to drink, that’s for sure. A whole bunch of us lingered around in the park til way after the race and kept drinking. I eventually entered a race of my own. Proposed by some weird frat kids putting up a case of terrible beer to the winner of a three against three race to the top of the hill, we happily took the prize and pretty much just used the beer as props to bite into and splash on each other. We then took a caravan ride to one of the city’s ample fountains, and in the middle of the Benjamin Franklin Parkway, started up what felt like a thirteen year old’s birthday pool party. Then on to some wonderful sandwiches followed by thorough sleeping.

Oh, I have a Flickr page now. I just put one up yesterday.   Click Here!