It’s Red Hook Crit time. What started as an underground event to celebrate David August Trimble’s birthday…seven years later, is now one of the premiere cycling competitions in New York City.
Here is a guide from David himself on BikeNYC.org:
The Essential Guide to the Red Hook Crit 2014size>
By: David Trimble
(photo of: Ingrid Drexler by Eloy Anzola )
In 2008, I organized the first ever Red Hook Crit to celebrate my 26th birthday. As someone who came up with one foot in traditional road bike racing and the other in unsanctioned urban alleycat races, I wanted to create a competition that would combine the physical intensity of road races with the amazing rivalries and spirit from the urban cycling scene. Despite the modest turnout at that first RHC event in Red Hook, Brooklyn, the atmosphere was intense and the race was a memorable one, with Kacey Manderfield pulling ahead to victory in a tight sprint against her male rivals.
Seven years on, Red Hook Crit has become a New York City cycling institution and spread across the Atlantic, with additional races held annually in Barcelona and Milan. RHC events pit world-class competitors against one another, racing on brakeless track bikes, with thousands of spectators cheering them on. This year, we’re excited to be hosting our first Women’s Criterium and introducing a field of future women cycling champions.
Read more: here.
Here is an article in The Street:
Brooklyn’s Hipster Bike Race ‘It’s Not About the Money’ size>
By: Leon Lazaroff
March 26th, 2014
Or maybe a prototypical Brooklyn happening featuring a horde of cyclists riding fixed-gear track bikes with no brakes at night around a tight course on a long pier facing lower Manhattan in front of 8,000 people, drinking and shouting and trying to figure out who’s winning.
Either way, the Red Hook Crit has evolved in seven years into something of a mecca among cycling enthusiasts with survivalist inclinations. And as the Crit, short for criterium, has grown, the borough that it calls home has been remade once again by its younger inhabitants, many of them eager migrants who’ve gravitated to the self-confident hipster capital of the world in hopes of being among the best of their generation’s artists, developers, thinkers and promoters.
Read more: here.
This event has come a long way from when volunteers had to try and hold off cars from plowing into a pack of speeding track bikes on the cobblestone streets near IKEA.
This year there was so much interest from the ladies, they got their own race.
One of those favorited is Stanridge Cycling sponsored rider: Katie Arnold.
This winter she’s been tearing it up on the Cyclocross circuit.
She’ll be rockin her Stanridge designed by London based street artist Ben EINE.
Speaking of the ladies, Susi Wunsch from VeloJoy just posted a great interview with Jo Celso who rides with LA’s Wolfpack Hustle.
IN RED HOOK CRIT WOMENS RACE, A VICTORY BEFORE THE START
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When Jo Celso lines up at the start of this year’s first-ever women’s field for the annual Red Hook Crit cycling race at the Brooklyn Cruise Terminal on Saturday night, she will already have beaten the most formidable of foes: cancer.
The 25-year-old, who rides for the otherwise male Wolfpack Hustle Track Team in San Diego, CA, received a diagnosis of Hodgkin’s lymphoma half-way through her first season of racing in 2011. Remarkably, Celso came back 6 months later to claim victory in the women’s field of the popular L.A. Marathon Crash track race. (See top photo: Mikey Wally)
That event is part of the world of unsanctioned urban racing, in which the Red Hook Crit is a force, having grown from a small neighborhood event to a series that draws an international field, as well as crowds of spectators who thrill to the excitement of night racing on track bikes without brakes or gears. Race organizer David Trimble says he recognized demand for a separate women’s field as the race grew — there are now six qualifying races on the men’s side — and “our long overdue ability to control a second field” made adding it a reality this season.
Celso joins an inaugural field of more than 35 women from the U.S., Italy and Puerto Rico. A key player in a vibrant women’s racing community based around the San Diego Velodrome, the young racer talked with us recently about the new women’s race, biking on chemo and what it’s like to be female in the male-dominated world of street racing.
Bring it! This Saturday night, cheer on the new Red Hook Crit women’s field, which includes a talented roster of New York City racers. Click here for all the details.
Have you raced Red Hook before?
I came out last year and I didn’t qualify; none of the women did. I remember walking away frustrated. I felt like there was just this big gap between a person like me and some of the pros and semi-pros, especially the guys who are winning and placing.I felt like that was the essence with a lot of the women. We felt like there was just no place for us. But when I heard they were putting in a women’s field at Red Hook, I went from not wanting to be there to really wanting to go.
Read the entire interview: here.
The Race will be going on all day with qualifications. Here is more info:
CRITERIUM RACE DETAILS (MEN’S)
24 Laps / 31.5 KM total distance
200 Riders attempt to qualify*
85 Riders advance to the main race
Track bikes required
Points awarded towards The Red Hook Criterium Championship Series
ATHLETE CHECK-IN: 12:00 PM – 3:30 PM
QUALIFYING: 2:00 PM – 5:00 PM
CRITERIUM: 9:45 PM
CRITERIUM RACE DETAILS (WOMEN’S)
18 Laps / 24 KM total distance
50 race spots available*
Track bikes required
Points awarded towards The Red Hook Criterium Championship Series
ATHLETE CHECK-IN: 12:00 PM – 1:00 PM
QUALIFYING: 1:30 PM – 2:00 PM
CRITERIUM: 9:00 PM
- See more at: http://bikenyc.org/event/5872#sthash.Y5CPT3VV.dpuf