I'm typign fixed-gear which is why I cant' backspace to fix the typoes

With all the excitement surrounding Mario Cipollini's impending visit to Brooklyn it's easy to forget there's also a race taking place this weekend.  And it's not just any race, either.  It's the most spectacular fixed-gear bicycle race the world has ever seen.

I'm talking of course about Skinsuits 'n Beards...though you probably know it by its nickname, the "Red Hook Crit:"


(Via here.)
While you millennials out there probably take the Red Hook Crit for granted the same way you take everything for granted (you really should be doing more with the future your elders have stolen from you), the truth is it has changed the face of bike racing forever.  For one thing, it put a big hairy beard on that face.  For another, "crits" used to be small bicycle races that nobody watched:


(Sadly for criterium racing, people waiting to cross the street didn't count as "spectators.")
Whereas fixed-gear bicycles were reserved for a sport called "track racing" that nobody watched:


("Six day racing was once the most popular sport in America" is a thing people say before you punch them in the nose.)
What the Red Hook Crit did was to combine those two things into something that, for some inexplicable reason, people suddenly want to watch:


Yes, it's a total mystery.  I mean, people couldn't possibly be watching the Red Hook Crit for the crashes.  That would imply human beings have some sort of innate bloodlust, and nothing could be further from the truth.


Of course there's a lot more more to it than that.  After all, it's fun to watch people go fast on bikes, which is why bicycle racing was once the most popular sport in America.  [Ducks and narrowly avoids punch in nose.]  Also, between then and now, an organization called USA Cycling did its very best to transform bicycle racing into the most spectator (and participant)-unfriendly sport the world has ever seen, and the Red Hook Crit wisely circumvents that whole operation.  Then there's the zeitgeist, and and the urban fixed-gear trend, and the Brooklyn setting, and blah blah blah and so forth.

Plus, like any sport, fixed-gear criteriums have spawned their own unique personalities, and this year's rider to watch will of course be Jeremy Santucci, who will be played by James Franco when Hollywood makes the story of his life:



Yes, you'll no doubt be elated to learn Santucci will indeed be starting this year:


And so I checked his twitter to see what he's been up to:


After getting lost in those piercing blue eyes for a full 15 minutes I learned that he is indeed training:

#Rollerparty #roadtoredhook