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.

It's No Secret I Love The Cobbles - Cincinnati Cobblestone Streets

Sectors 14 and 15 could be right out your door in your hometown. While we all romanticize about the pave of the Paris-Roubaix race this Easter Sunday, the cobblestones pictured left are not part of any of the race's sectors.  They are on Cincinnati’s Riverfront.  They may look new, but in fact they are historic and harsh to ride on.  I rumble over them every now and then.  However,  I don't have to go as far as downtown to ride cobblestones.  You probably don't either.  Just a few blocks from my house is a parking lot for the Precinct Restaurant that used to be, judging from the old tracks imbedded in the blacktop, some sort of train or trolley stop.  The murals have faded on the trestle walls, but if you look closely at the concrete buttress.  You’ll see images of a trolley car and a historic Ohio River scene.  Below your feet, big long hand cut weather rounded cobbles.  Sure Paris-Roubaix has France, baguettes, the best bike riders and sometimes mud; but cobbles, cobbles are everywhere.  There's history and tradition in your own town if you veer off your normal route, drag your brakes and look around on your next ride.

Last night I did my typical recovery ride, but this time I took a few cobblestone detours through downtown Cincinnati Ohio and across the bridge to Newport and Covington in Kentucky.  The sector pictured above is in Covington.  I owe it to my buddy Tony for showing me the stretches of pave in Covington.  Whenever we ride through one he says in a forced thick Tomeke Boonen-esque accent, “Is no secret I lahv da cah-bulls.”  I’m certain he would say this if he were riding alone too. 

This sector is one of my favorites.  It’s a beautiful little hill leading from the Riverside Drive park up to 3rd street in the historic district of Covington east of the Roebling Suspension bridge.  I looked for a street sign, but there was none.  It may be an alley.  Like the photo shows, they go for a few blocks and it’s a climb no less.  Coming down, if you dare to lift your eyes away from the rumbling pave, you get a beautiful view of downtown Cincinnati with the Ohio River as a door mat.  For cyclists however, the more romantic view is upwards of cobbles pinched between historic homes with flowering window boxes and wrought iron fences.