EventServices

Our perspective was a little different. We shot this video on the final lap holding up a sign thanking RVA.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=l9o-5mHDZt8

Dan333SP

Cool, I remember seeing that sign and sure enough, found myself in your video!

Andy Somnifac 

Yep, remember you coming around. I spy a very blurry me about 20 seconds in.

Dan333SP

I love cobbles and black & white photos, played around with a few of the ones I took and I think this one is a keeper for a desktop background. Look at Dagenkolb's face, he was trying!

WCroadie

Holy hell Dan, we were right next to each other. I am under the blue arrow, my buddy is the guy in the orange shirt

Dan333SP

Ha, that's quite the coincidence, two BF members happen to be next to each other while a 3rd films them. That's my friend's girlfriend in the blue shirt and red hat, I got a bunch of pictures of her shouting at the riders that include your buddy in the orange shirt next to her.

Also, tell me you didn't imagine for a second whether that support guy on the other side of the fence would notice if you just slipped one of those deep carbon rims up over the fence and vanished into the crowd. I know I kept looking at them and wondering if they reaaaaalllly needed all those wheels

seypat

How cool is that! You guys probably exchanged a few looks, grins etc. and didn't know. I was on 29th between Libbie and Franklin. When the riders came onto 29th last lap they accelerated hard going down 29th. They all had looks of extreme anguish on their faces. Sagan simple kit practically made him invisible. The only reason I recognized him is because he had his hair in a mun. At least I think it was him. I think he had a small lead then. I actually thought he was behind and was ready to get lapped. Then the rest came through. The announcer started whipping up the crowd shouting Peter Sagan! This rider with a red/brown beard came by. I told the lady next to me that he was not Sagan because of the beard. But the announcer was just calling the action on the JumboTron.

WCroadie

At one point I said to my friend, I could take this wheel if I wanted. I reached down and picked it up to the top of the fence, the slovenian guy had no idea. Too bad I don't ride campy We chatted with the girl in the red hat and the other girl (asian?) for a bit. Were you talking about dumb and dumber? There was a bunch of VCU people there, I was impressed with how well behaved you all were. In the Philly race, on Lemon Hill and "The Wall" all the college kids just use it as an excuse to get wasted and be obnoxious.

It's still funny to me that we were right there and didn't know.

Dan333SP

There's your buddy sneaking in (or at least I think so). Great spot! I rode for VCU in grad school and I'm still involved in the club as are most of those people with us, the cycling group is great. There were also a bunch of "ambassadors" there in yellow shirts, not sure exactly what their role was. My friend got down on his stomach and took some photos under the fence with my camera too, sadly he didn't zoom at all for some reason so they're not as cool as they could have been.

Dan333SP

This is a great gallery of shots taken by one of our favorite local photographers-

Cutaway USA | 2015 UCI Road World Championships

WCroadie

Lol I heard some guy say he was gonna put the camera on the ground. We did not sneak in, we were standing behind 2 guys who decided to leave after the 5th or 6th lap and offered us their prime viewing spots.

Those are some great shots, better than mine

Did you have a black VCU hat on? Also were you with the guy with the old school white trek with downtube shifters?

Steve530

Thanks. I remember seeing you drive by, too. I was near the monument at the top of the hill.

DropBarFan

Neat! Sorry, I didn't see the sign w/eyes glued to the jumbotron on final laps. But saw a lot of enthusiastic cheerleaders in the officials' cars: one young kid in one of the black Lexus was waving to the crowds for many laps. & there was a young woman driving a van in the procession, it was kinda funny to see the truck bounding over the pavé & leaning sideways on the hairpins--she was really driving that thing.

BTW--Question for others: to post photos here is it better to link them from a hosting site or is it OK to upload directly from home PC to here?

DropBarFan

Sorry you couldn't make it, I lucked out by the race being only 90-minute drive away. if it was in California, for instance, I doubt I would have been able to make it.

WCroadie

I usually just link to other sites, if they are my photos I use imgur or google photos

Dan333SP

I think the problem with uploading directly is a file size limit. I just link to my photos that I post on facebook, that seems to work fine, or I upload smaller images here.

WCroadie- I was in a brown Tulane hat (undergrad) and a white Cutaway shirt with American flag sunglasses, don't recall seeing a Trek with DT shifters, I think we all checked our bikes at the bike valet at the bottom of the hill.

I keep looking out my window at work and shaking my head about how lucky the timing was on those races. If this weather had taken place a week earlier, the whole event would have been a mess and probably be regarded as a disaster by a lot of people.

DropBarFan

Thanks.

Yeah, it was unreal. Rained Fri nite IIRC; pretty much stopped before Junior race; streets were damp but it dried up & Womens' race had no rain. The overcast skies were pretty nice to help keep spectators & racers cool & overcast is better for photography AFAIK. It's rained all week afterward, my tent is still lying damp 'cause not a dry day to wash/dry it!

BTW, Libby Hill has a great view of the James River with the huge Lucky Strike chimney. River banks were surprisingly green, almost rural-looking. Some cool condo buildings nearby located in old factories/warehouses, very hip-looking.

WCroadie

Dan - I thought maybe I had a few pics with you in it, but no tulane hat

FYI - MSNBC has a race recap show tomorrow.

Dan333SP

I've only lived here ~5 years. but those condos are all relatively recent ("Tobacco Row" for obvious reasons). They're basically where post-college 20-somethings without student debt and/or spouses live. The riverfront is one massive park system near downtown (James River Park System), lots of great singletrack for mountain biking and plenty of areas on the water for people to relax. We go to Texas Beach sometimes, you can swim in the river and it's sandy without too much current. Really an exceptional amount of greenspace in this city for how small it is, really love it.

DropBarFan

I believe that show is on regular ole' NBC, not MSNBC nor NBCSN. Kinda nice for folks who don't get cable. 12 pm - 1 pm. NBCSN (IIRC) showed all the different events which was nice but OTOH not complete start-finish coverage. That would have been nice esp for the Elite races. After all, they have 6 hours+ during TDF albeit not start-finish, just repeating the broadcast 2-3 hour broadcasts during the day.

cafzali

My wife and I volunteered, so we went there briefly to check in, but I didn't really go to the Expo.

We had a great meal at Rappahannock. It's definitely worth a try if you haven't yet. The food and service were great.

cafzali

Qatar pays big bucks to get its events. There would be no Emerates races if that weren't the case.

DropBarFan

Thanks for volunteering, it was amazing to see the huge # of volunteers. I hope they gave ya'll some good swag or whatnot. Saw some of the volunteers dutifully using their grabbers to remove trash from the recycling bins! At one pro race (not Richmond) I saw a big trailer/kitchen thing that had a menu posted next to it. I asked one of the chefs if it was food for the teams but she said it was for the volunteers. I thought that was a nice touch esp since the menu looked pretty tasty/nutritious.

I went to En Su Boca & got some nice tacos Sat eve. Was kinda funny to see all the spectators toting coffee mugs; I stopped both Sat & Sun for coffee at the Giordana popup shop on E Broad.

Dan333SP

Love that spot, I live a couple miles up that road from there. My team usually does a post-tuesday night training crit thing there during the summer.

merlinextraligh

No doubt money talks.

But in the last 20 years, the worlds have been outside Europe 4 times, and in North America twice. (Columbia 1995, Canada, 2003, Australia, 2010, Richmond 2015).

With the globalization of cycling, I don't think it's unreasonable to expect Worlds back in North America in the next decade.