One man’s day at the races

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Race report from Philly:

From: 40 Hands

Here it goes, based on the picture you may have already viewed, I drug my sorry ass down to the Philly International Race yesterday. The plan was simple, meet some old college friends, watch the race, drink beer, and try not to get the shit kicked out of me by a surly philadelphian. By 11, I got a beer cracked, and am making my way towards the portion of the course following the Manayunk Wall. My buddy Tall Steve steers us in the direction of house party that is right on the route. For those who care Steve and I used to take part in many running tap experiments in college, and my big hope for the day was to only take days off of my liver’s life, not years. Anyway, along the course its just a big block party, open container laws are forgotten about, everyone cheers the racers as they go by, and most importantly the all are getting along.

Because this is basically a college reunion of sorts for me, I decide to do what I did in college, drink the Nat Lights. After we see the mens and women come by we head over to the Wall. Being from the East Coast I felt like I knew a little something about what it’s like to climb a short steep hill. Then a saw the slope of this beast, and I have never been more happy to be a spectator in my life. For those who don’t know, its a steep fucking climb, and that is all you need to know. As with the other portion of the course, its just a giant block party. Local bars are sponsoring houses, so the hooch is free, and the spirits are high (keep in mind at this point the Flyers had yet to get demolished by the Blackhawks). A hose was hung from a pipe near the top of the climb, acting as a mini shower for the racers as they rode up. For the next hour or so, life was good, watching the race, hanging out with folk, and enjoying the fine Nat Light in a red solo cup.

After the racers made their final trip up the Wall, we headed back to the house party, politely accepting all of the free beer which was being offered to us. No one really bothered to figured out who had won the race, and how, all I heard was some guy tell me he was pissed because an American didn’t win. From there, the grills were fired up, coolers were emptied, and people continued to drink, because they needed to “prep” to watch the hockey game later that evening. So there ya have it, I came, I saw, I drank, and enjoyed the Philly International.

The breakaway on the Wall.
The breakaway on the Wall.
Me trying to offer the racers some Nat Light.
Me trying to offer the racers some Nat Light.

I’ve been to that race exactly once. I rode what felt like a million laps in a car around the course with a big cooler full of bottles and some spare wheels. That was my day. The Wall is nuts. People threw water balloons at us like they were trying to fucking kill us. It was awesome.

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About big jonny

The man, the legend. The guy who started it all back in the Year of Our Lord Beer, 2000, with a couple of pages worth of idiotic ranting hardcoded on some random porn site that would host anything you uploaded, a book called HTML for Dummies (which was completely appropriate), a bad attitude (which hasn’t much changed), and a Dell desktop running Win95 with 64 mgs of ram and a six gig hard drive. Those were the days. Then he went to law school. Go figure. Flagstaff, Arizona, USA

3 Replies to “One man’s day at the races”

  1. …i came to watch dustin byfuglien dump chris pronger on his ass & a hockey game broke out…7 goals…fucking sweet…

    …even sweeter ???…pronger was on the ice for the first 4 goals against, was in the box, allowing the power play to score #5 & was back on the ice for the last 2, including mr byfuglien’s scoring the empty netter by literally going through pronger…

    …will pronger bounce back for game 6 ???…bet ‘cher ass…will dustin byfuglien be up to the task ???…bet ‘cher ass, yer house n’ all yer savings !!!…

    …take it in 6, chicago…do it in philly & make ’em really hurt…

  2. …cyclingnews headline”Cancellara plays down chances of repeating Suisse win”

    …i believe he used the unfortunate phrase “my cycling battery is run down”

  3. I hate Pronger with a passion.

    I watched Byfuglien play junior hockey for 5 years and can’t stand him as a result, never will. He’s a classless goon. Were it not for the fact that Duncan Keith is on the Blackhawks team it would be a pox on both their houses.

    I watched Keith played juniors as well. He is a classy player and one of the best skaters I have ever laid eyes on.

    I’m cheering for the Hawks in spite of Byfuglien.