Syracuse Race Weekend

Our cycling club organizes a stage race every year in May. It consists of a road race on Saturday morning, a time trial Saturday afternoon/evening, and a criterium all day Sunday. Usually, I participate in the fun of racing, but this year I decided to help the club by volunteering. I started Saturday morning at the registration desk. Thankfully, with the advent of online registration, this job has gotten much easier. Participants who choose to pre-register enter their appropriate category and payment online and then we just have to check that they are currently licensed by USA Cycling and hand them their bib number.

After registration closed, I rode (via car) with a friend to the northernmost part of the course which features a long climb. This is the established area for team support personnel to hand off extra water bottles and food to the riders. It's also a good spot for photo opportunities because the riders are going slower up the hill. After we saw most of the riders pass through the feed zone (some categories did two loops of the 33-mile course), we rode back to the starting area. There was about a two-hour delay before the first riders in the time trial were to go off, so we killed time mingling amongst the riders and chatting. Then the rain came. Thankfully, my parents had gotten us a 10'x10' pop-up canopy, which we set up directly behind our cars. It was great to be able to hang out comfortably out of the rain! I would have loved to get a photo of that, too, but it was raining too hard! Being that I had no official duties for the time trial, I was able to go to the start line and get some shots there. I watched a few of the riders in my boyfriend's category, then left the site and booked for home.