Sunday, May 4, 2008

Haedo wins among pros at Air Force Cycling Classic

The inaugural U.S. Air Force Cycling Classic took place today on 7.8 mile circuit around the Pentagon, Crystal City, and the Air Force Memorial. The event included an amateur ride, a U.S. Service Academy Team Time Trials, kids races, and a pro men's race.

The relatively long circuit gave spectators a much more limited view of the race than in a short-loop crit like the CSC Invitational. The finish of the pro race was in downtown Crystal City. But the Air Force Memorial was a good spot to catch some of the racing action. See video below.



Lucas Sebastian Haedo (Colavita) won the pro men's race. Cycling News has a race summary. I missed the Service Academy Team Time Trials, and the cycling sites don't have any reporting on it. Well, I'll try to cover that omission next year.

Update: MB has a report, with photos, on the Service Academy Shootout. See also his great photos of the pro finish.

Another must-see is Brian's video of the pro race. Check out his spectacular, ground-level segment of the riders on the roundabout, with the Air Force Memorial in the background.

2 comments:

Anonymous said...

For the women's TTT, it was Army, Navy, Air Force. For the Men's, I *think* it was Air Force, Navy, Army. I could be wrong, having confused some of the A and B teams.

The Air Force men's team looked, how do you say it . . . PRO. Seriously equipped and in good form. The Navy guys lacked the aero kits, but were scrappy as hell.

The Air Force team did manage to pull off a decided Un-PRO move when one of the guys ran into a curb and launched his bike into the air. Even better than hitting a curb at slow speed? He was going uphill. D'oh. I can't believe that we've not seen pictures of it yet, as at least one local reporter/photographer was standing right there, and I understand a local news camera was on it, too.

The most impressive part of the Academies part of the day, by far, was the shootout sprints, in which learned that there is the right way, and then the Army way, to win a sprint. I'll be posting pictures later today, I hope.

BAS said...

Hi

Here's my video of the event:

http://www.vimeo.com/977003