Location, Location, Location: 04/09/05 Here is the story (including the legendary meeting of Paul and Humberto) about the 5th ever winner of the American Road Cycling Ridgebury Prime jersey. As with all Ridgebury competitions, these results stand firm unless successfully overturned by one of the participants or their legal surrogate or estate filing a complaint with American Road Cycling. The statute of limitations on contesting results is 47.5 years from the date of the competition. BTW: This installment of Tales from the Hump is written by SlingShot, because Nuclear Dan is on vacation sweeping up sewage out of his basement after the big rains. Think about this. You are a renowned cyclist. Not so long ago, in the NYC Central Park pro races, you were orchestrating breakaways with George Hincapie—breakaways that stuck! Now you've retired from cycling, and you've got a lawn design business that is bringing the beauty of upstate NY right up to the doorways of people fortunate enough to hire you. Things are going great, and you've moved into a beautiful house (with manicured lawn of course) in a prestigious development amongst the hills and trees out and away from the bustle. Life is pretty sweet. Then across the street you notice some bicycle type activities in the garage of your new neighbor. On a regular basis, cars are showing up with bicycles on top. Delivery trucks are dropping off boxes. People pull up with empty roof racks, then pull away with bikes on top. Many of the cars without roof racks are obvious rentals, because people are flying in from all over the U.S., maybe even other countries. All these people look strong and fast, and you notice groups of riders gathering to leave for rides a couple times a week. You are a curious little cat. Could it hurt to just walk over and see what's going on? "Hi, my name's Humberto, and I noticed the bikes." "Hi, my name's Paul Latrine, and indeed you have noticed these bikes." Well, there's no need to belabor this meeting. It is the stuff of legend. Humberto Cavalheiro meets Paul Latrine. The rest is well known history and would only make your legs hurt to hear again. So let's jump forward to the 04/09/05 Hump and the inevitable outcome of this meeting. A small group of us from American Road Cycling decide to do the Hump backward in order to avoid overtraining in the early season. On the way out, I receive several verbal warnings for pulling uphill too hard and am told I risk a permanent mark on my record. Apparently the 26 lbs I lost in Florida this winter has made my usual effort (to stay in the ride) pay off with just enough speed for people to be able to stay behind me by using only one, not both, of their brakes. Of course, it is not nearly enough speed to make them choose to stay quiet. We finally get to the real hills where I crack and get dropped, but everybody waits for me so their conversations about how slow I am can be recorded. That allowed me to be with the group when it turned onto CR 1 (Pine Island Turnpike), less than a mile from the Camel Farm. Till then, we hadn't seen any of the other riders coming towards us, but a moment later someone shouts, "RIDER UP." By golly it's Humberto. He's just coming off the "Y" from CR 12 (Lower Road), and there's nobody else from the front group in sight. He's in his drops and working. As he passes us we all cheer. Then we see another rider come around the bend about 20 yards back. It's Dangerous Dan, former Ridgebury Prime winner. Then another 20 yards back appears Dave on his Pinarello. Then Doug Allen another former Ridgebury Prime winner. He's about 17.4 yards behind Dave and closing, but who's counting? Then nobody. We go around the curve, start the mild climb up to the Camel Farm, and just as we settle in someone shouts, "HERE THEY COME!" It's the main group, with the most hated Donnavin pulling. The group is bunched tightly, the hammer is down. The four riders we'd seen sprinkled out a quarter mile ahead are definitely blipping the group's radar. You can smell the intensity, like diesel fuel and sweat. For a moment I think I catch a glimpse of Iron Mike Norton in the middle of the pack. He's got his notebook out and is working on something like his taxes while lounging back and sipping on a sports drink. At least that's what I remember. Nuclear Dan says, "Those guys up front are going to be caught by this group for sure. Maybe if Iron Mike was up there with them, and they were all working together, they'd survive. But not like this. Not with everybody working solo. It's just a matter of time." And I guess it was, but that's not the point. This is about the Ridgebury Prime, and Humberto was way out front when the American Road Cycling reporting officials (that would be us) came across the ride and designated that very location as this week's Ridgebury Prime finish line. [see: Dr. Art Doctrine of Finish Line Fickleness] So Humberto won the jersey, and the rest of us decided it was so exciting to do the Hump backwards and see a race in progress—from a front row seat—we are naming our bass-ackwards Hump ride The Rump and doing it again. See you there! - SlingShot
Once again Iron Mike Norton has gone out of his way to confirm results. After the ride, he mentioned that at the very top of Ridgebury, it was if fact Dan Sullivan who was just in front of Humberto. So in keeping with the American Road Cycling policy of one to a customer, the Humberto win stands. Probably just a matter of time till Iron Mike wins one of his own. Maybe he'll win on honesty alone. Maybe it was actually Humberto who told us Dangerous Dan took the top of Ridgebury again.
this page last updated: 02/01/2015 10:38:49 PM |
