Under the radar screen

Only two days off at home after the Tour and I’m now off to NY for a big Criterium. The tour event (Champions Club event) was tiring but I have work to do so I’ll rest later. The race is on August 4th but we had to be there early as usual for sponsor activities. I flew in to Philly on Thursday night. I wanted to loaded the car to drive straight to NY. I landed at about 5:00, had dinner with a few friends and headed to NY at about 8:00. I thought I could logically get to our hotel by 10:30 or 11:00 at the worst. Lucky for me the Holland tunnel was being worked on and down to one lane. I think I spent more gas creeping forward towards the tunnel than actually driving to the off ramp to the tunnel in NY. I actually arrived at about almost 1:00 AM. That’s the breaks though. Sometimes things go smooth and sometimes they don’t. I have to have the “No big deal” attitude otherwise I’d pull my hair out.
Friday night the riders arrived minus Robbie who would arrive Saturday, AM. Saturday was a Q and A session followed by an autograph session at Nike town NY. Fun to see the fans line up to see our team. Not the normal mainstream football/basketball/baseball fans seen here but a fair amount of cycling fans nonetheless.
Sundays race was fairly easy. Since I did not bring the truck, I went the opposite and brought the minimum for 5 riders here. I thought I would take Amy (Soigneur) the scenic route to the start of the race which was a more direct line (than the one I took last year) to the area where we had a VIP set up for sponsors AND close to the pit I wanted to be at. Well, I’ve never seen so many cops in my life. There was a huge radius of blocked street. So bad that I was trying to talk to my boss and drive to see where he was. That was a no-no. Cell phones and driving are illegal in NY and I was sternly told to get off my phone to avoid a $100 fine by the NY cop who saw me.
The race itself was easy as not too many mechanicals at all (of any team). A quick shower, a team dinner, and an easy packing of the car and I was out of there and going towards Philly by 9:00 ish. I had to drive the truck to Chicago in advance for Pro Crits in Downers Grove in a few weeks.
It seemed like I was in and out of NY under the radar screen.