This weekend our beautiful Denver played host not only to the Duvall Demolition Duo, but also the USA Pro Cycle Challenge. With a recent road bike purchase under my belt, I (Chris) obviously knew what to expect, but was a real thrill for Sarah, Bill and our friends Chad and Michelle to see bicycles moving in excess of 40 mph up close.
The bikers had spent the entire week going over some of Colorado's toughest passes. The finish line was situated right in the heart of downtown Denver. That is the old City and County building as seen in our July 4th and snowboard competition posts.
You could tell that this event was the real deal with recognizable team names like Garmin and Radioshack bringing their big team RVs.
The reality of the competition at hand was further evidenced by the Anti-Doping (that is what the yellow sign in the windshield of that RV says) station not but 100 yards from the finish line.
We situated ourselves on the second to last corner before the finish (13th and Grant for you Denverites). That is our friend Chad, always looking down on everyone around him. Sarah and Michelle are enjoying the shade under that golf umbrella.
And this is what they saw from that orange rail right in from of them...
This stage of the race included 6 circuits around downtown, lucky for us, our little corner of the course was also on the approach to the beginning of the circuits, so we got to see the riders a total of 7 times. So after the riders would go by, there was time to re-situate to different places. Here is the peloton from the other side of the street. You will notice that the group seems a little lengthier than the first video, that is because this shot was about the 5th circuit, when the racers really started to bunch up for the finish.
For the last circuit we moved down down the course a piece to see the riders launch in to the finish. Those of you who frequent this blog will recognize my youthful voice shouting encouragement (for some reason we have a lot of video with me shouting in the background). The incoherent hodge podge of words about halfway through is me reacting to a half-full water bottle being thrown in my general direction by one of the riders.
Untitled from Sarah Gilstrap on Vimeo.
After a couple hours of watching those guys work so hard we were beat, we returned to the Gilstrap Home/Duvall Construction site for some much needed relaxation.
A great day with great people, a great excuse to bust out the new grill.
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