As you all know, I hate New York City. I think it is a dirty, nasty, smelly place with too many people.
Despite these feelings, I went to NYC, of my own free will, to do the NYC Women's Challenge and the Race the Wind Road Race (also to meet Ed's sisters and see my aunt and cousin). After taking off my roof rack (Mike and Steve have both had locked roof racks stolen in NYC) I headed off to Connecticut to meet Ed. I followed him along 15, while he tried to make the drive exciting and bike-racey for me. Really it just wrecked my gas mileage though with the constant braking and downshifting.
We made it into NYC around 8 and went out to dinner with Ed's sisters Paige and Liz, and Paige's boyfriend Cem. Afterwards we stopped at Gristede's to get some sorbet. A well-dressed, 20-something, completely normal-looking black woman said something as we walked past, but I wasn't really paying attention. This is what happened, roughly:
Paige: Why did you just call me a slut?
Woman: Because you *are* a slut.
Paige: You don't even know me. How could you say that?
Woman: Leave me alone, bitch.
Paige: I just want to know why you called me a slut!
Woman: What you gonna do... hit me? What, are you one of them gangsta ho-wahs? (This is the best approximation I can make of the way the woman pronounced "whores.")
Paige: You're a psycho freak.
Everyone seemed to think it was kind of funny... maybe you have to find humor in stuff like that to make it in New York. The woman kept on looking at us from the freezer case, clearly worried that we were going to come after her. She seemed particularly threatened by Paige, who is thin and blond and beautiful and was wearing a pink baby-T with blue sleeves, jeans, and pink flip-flops. I don't know about you, but where I come from, this is the uniform of a super-threatening GANGSTA HO-WAH. You gotta watch out for them.
The next morning, Paige, Liz, and Cem left to go to Connecticut in Porkchop (Ed's FABULOUS Buick Riviera), and I drove to Grant's Tomb. We were running a bit late, but it looked like the race was running really late, so I wasn't too worried. I hopped on the trainer, secure in the knowledge that the Cat 4s were still racing, and the citizens' race was still to follow. Unfortunately, the citizens' race was either cancelled or postponed, and after about 10 minutes on the trainer I had to go to the line. The announcer said, "Saturn has been out warming up for an hour-and-a-half now!" Oh yeah. Crank up that intimidation factor just a little more please! Like it's not enough that one of Ina Teutenberg's legs is bigger than my whole body!
I like this race though... I was hopeful that I could hang in there for a little while, but I only made it about 20 minutes before I got pulled. Ed and I decided to go for a little urban ride afterwards and headed out to the George Washington Bridge, which is the place where my coach, Mike Ross, had his Trek 1200 (I think) stolen from him at knifepoint. Ed said he would protect me though, so I consented to ride across the bridge. Then we headed back to the race course, where we got packed up and ready to go after I almost got flattened by an ambulance that was parking (at low speed), exactly at the spot where I was riding next to the curb.
I found out before the race that two friends of mine (one of whom is a teammate) had gotten into a bad car accident on their way to the race, but were okay, and after some discussion we decided I couldn't really take anything or anyone back to Boston. They made it okay though.
Ed and I were ravenous so we headed back to Cem's apartment for a snack. Then we got cleaned up and dressed up to carry out our fabulous evening plan: Jane Eyre, the musical. It was actually Ed's idea, which shows you how cool he is... It's like hanging out with one of the spinsters, albeit a really cute male one. We decided to go for the full evening attire, so Ed put on his tux and I put on my black Spinster House Spring Formal evening gown and we headed down to Times Square. I actually put on some make-up, but it was so little that Ed actually mocked me.
I am all about being excessively overdressed. We definitely looked a little weird walking around Times Square. We stopped at the Roxy Diner for dinner. He ordered a corned beef sandwich, which turned out to be two very small pieces of bread with about 5 pounds of meat in between. I had a bacon cheeseburger with excessive amounts of fat on the bacon. It was a bit nasty but I wolfed it all down and kept my dress clean. The burger alone was about $15. Afterwards we both felt a bit sick from the excessive meatiness.
The musical was actually really great, despite the ludicrousness (is that a word?) of staging Jane Eyre as a musical. At intermission a woman behind us tapped me on the shoulder and said, "I just wanted to tell you that the two of you look so nice! Just like you stepped out of a fashion magazine." She _was_ wearing bright pink lipstick though, so don't take her word for it.
On Sunday morning, we got up way too early to go to the Race the Wind Road Race at Floyd Bennett Field in Brooklyn. I started getting overuse injuries in my right forearm and left knee from driving Jane in the city. We had some trouble and missed about three bridges, but finally made it into Brooklyn. Mark had told us about this race before, saying it was the most brutal thing he'd ever done... I didn't realize it was the same race. I thought we'd be in a park somewhere, but sure enough it was an airfield, just as Mark had described. There weren't any women's races so I signed up for the 3-4 men's race with Ed. Thirteen laps on a flat, 2-mile course, with killer cross/headwinds. At the starting line, a big guy behind me started giving his own "instructions" to the pack after the officials had their say. "And no swearin'! You swear at me, I'll punch you in the mouth! I ain't gonna be nobody's M-F! Maybe after the race, but not right now!" etc. You gotta love New York City. Ah tell you whut!
My evil plan was to stay on Ed's wheel as long as possible. Unfortunately he attacked from the gun and stayed away with another guy for about a lap. I tried to get in with them, then realized the futility of the whole exercise. Meanwhile I was caught in no-man's-land (or no-woman's-land) between the two leaders and the pack. I got back in the group around the second turn and sat in for a few laps. On lap 3 Ed came back to check on me. Oh he is so cute. So very cute. I stayed in until the end of lap 4, when a slight acceleration by the pack at the end of the headwind leg caught me unprepared and just too tired to hang on. I stayed with another guy, and eventually we picked up a third and a fourth. I was sitting behind the third guy, who was this huge, really nice guy. I say he was really nice because he pulled through steady, never went too fast, and never made me pull on the headwind leg. (Not that anyone could've gotten much of a draft of me anyway, in the drops on my 48-cm bike.) The first guy, however, was clearly upset that he was with me. I think I was doing my share and pulling through pretty evenly, but he would always act annoyed and accelerate around me, ruining our smooth paceline. I was suffering trying to keep up with this group, but I felt great! It was pretty awesome, my first time feeling really good racing this season. We got lapped by the main field on the very last lap, but I can deal with being 2 mph slower than Cat 3 men. I jumped in with the pack as they got up 29 mph. I sat in the back so I wouldn't be in the way during the sprint. Ed finished 8th, which was pretty decent.
Near the end, a girl who had been lapped a couple times jumped in with my little group. She knew who I was, and it turned out my teammates had recommended she talk to me, since she was trying to decide between 650s or 700s for her new IF. I spoke to her after the race and also talked to a friend of hers who told me Mari Holden is hapa. =) Also afterwards the big guy who was so nice came over to say that it was fun to ride with me. How nice. The whole race left me with a good feeling, I have to say.
We drove over to Queens to meet my aunt Ding-Lan and cousin Heidi for lunch. We went to a lovely Thai restaurant with some really awesome decor after a bit of a walk. Here is a street sign we saw... only in New York. We had some great Thai food, and Ding-Lan explained to Ed how to make all the curry dishes, which I guess means I have something great to look forward to. =) Ding-Lan took us to Flushing's Chinatown, and bought us some great food: lychee in big bunches (she put some leaves in the bunch to make it "hao kan," nice to look at) and some tasty pastries and sago tea at Ed's favorite Chinese bakery, Taipan. We stopped at a Chinese grocery, where Ding-Lan showed Ed what he needed to make Thai curry, and Ed and I picked up some tasty "vegetarian pork paste" for Liz.
We had to cut our visit short to head back to the Upper West Side, to collect Porkchop from the girls and head back to New Haven. We had dinner at this awesome diner in New Rochelle (challah bread french toast). We had our own little jukebox at the table. The playlist:
I lost Ed at the toll booth on the way back to New Haven, but placated myself with the Offspring's "Bad Habit," and managed to catch up with him after about 10 miles. Porkchop has pretty distinctive tail-lights.
So that was the trip. Some pretty decent racing, nice visits with relatives, and no acts of theft or violence perpetrated upon my person. Really, in New York, you can't hope for much more.
