Racing Snake Alley

Looking at all the pictures and listening to all the lore, Snake Alley's focus is on the fabled climb of the crookedest street. The climb certainly doesn't disappoint and watching racers through the day it certainly is a difference maker.

We saw more than one instance of racers getting cut off in corners, falling over and being forced to walk the uphill cobbles in road cleats. There were several instances of racers being weighted too far onto their front wheel, slipping the rear tire, losing all momentum and pretending to have Turrets Syndrome for a few moments. All caught by someone on camera to live in infamy on the internets over the next few days. If you kept track of riders you could also track guys that nailed the start, were first up the hill, and then got lapped about 4 laps later.

One of the unseen parts of the race, everyone is up on the hill to watch, is the cyclocross start. The first time through Snake Alley is less than 1/10th of a mile from the start with a 90 degree corner along the way. In crits you always want to be toward the front, but in this crit you HAVE to be up front immediately.

Having just completed Ault Park this past week you get a false sensation of what starts are like - no one seems to ever be in a hurry to get moving right away. At Snake Alley guys are sprinting off the line to get to the hill in the front ten as if they were OJ Simpson trying to get through an airport.

The climb is the evident focus of the crit, but as they say what goes up must come down. If you step back and think through the logic and do some calculations you realize half the course is about having the kajones to descend through four corners of a crit at break neck speed.

After climbing up a 21% grade, bringing your heart to near explosion, you have to take a right turn, stare down an 8%-10% grade, turn right, descend more, turn left, descend more, turn right, carry all your speed and turn right again. Doing this alone might be fun and interesting. You could Strava your downhill speed and brag to your neighbor. But here you have to do it with all your freshly minted racing friends, whom you have never raced with, surrounding you.

The climb at Snake Alley gets all the attention, but the descent is underrated.

What is a "Snake Alley"

Snake Alley is one way going down
 except for the race.

Before we left Cincinnati we mentioned we were heading to Snake Alley to several cyclist and the response was a pretty unanimous "oh, really?" The kind of response that says "I heard of it, but I ain't never been there." Which, before this weekend, is exactly what I knew of it - there is an alley and it snakes - and of course OVCX regular Drew Dillman has won the hotly contested Juniors 15-18 race two years consecutive.

Today our mission was to find out exactly what this Snake Alley really entails. A preview ride the day before the real race should at least tell us what some of the hub-bub is about, but the real race will be a new experience to all in the car.

Some research on Wikipedia revealed some information about the Alley - or at least I am hoping this specific Wikipedia page wasn't hi-jacked.  http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Snake_Alley

Spencer and Kenzie headed up the bricks

According to the Wikipedia page the alley was constructed in 1894 to connect downtown Burlington, IA to the close by neighborhoods. Due to the steepness of the hill, the alley winds in a serpentine fashion about 275 feet, rising about 58 feet vertically over that span. The resulting grade is approximated at 21% - though that appears to vary if you take the outside line on all the curves. The pictures on the internet give it a Lombard Street from San Francisco feel to it. Wikipedia says, again hoping it is accurate, the crooked section of Lombard is about 1300 feet long, making Snake Alley about 1/10th the size.  http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lombard_Street_(San_Francisco)

To prepare for this race we had to find something local to Cincinnati to practice. Through discussion and research we found that Adams Road is relatively close to Snake Alley in dimension. If you haven't been up it, head up the Little Miami bike trail to Loveland and head up the hill just north of the downtown Loveland section. Many of you have done this and groan audibly when someone suggest starting a ride up Adams. Now go race up it a few times with about 2 minutes between attempts and your heart rate already spiked.

Closeup of the pavers used

Many of you will agree that sounds hard, but what brings the lore that Snake Alley has earned is the fact that the climb is also cobbled. Yes, it is laid brick from bottom to top creating the opportunity to lose your traction, fall over, slip and have to run up a 21% grade in road cleats. 


I bet this Alley could tell quite a few tales and I hope to capture some to share tomorrow.