$10 Racing Entry Fee
Registration 6:00 pm
Race Start 6:30 pm
No License Required
Must sign City of Pittsburgh and ABR releases.

Release PDFs and more info at FRIDAYNIGHTTRACK.COM

Time Trials

Freewheel, Front/Rear Brakes, Gears and Helmets Required.

June 4—5 Miles
June 18—10 Miles
July 2—15 Miles
July 16—20 Miles
July 30—25 Miles
August 6—10 Miles
August 13—20 Miles
August 20—25 Miles

Track Races

· Fixed Wheel & Lockring, Drop/Plugged Bars, Front/Rear Axle Bolts and Helmets Required. No Brakes Allowed.

June 11
June 25
July 9
July 23

Masters 50+ Criterium

· Freewheel, Front/Rear Brakes, Gears and Helmets Required.

August 27

Beginner Clinic

· Beginner racer clinics will be offered during track racing nights to help promote a safe and fun race environment and encourage everyone to give track racing a try.

Events subject to change.

Prizes from Magic Hat Brewing, Mad Mex and other Iron City Bikes Racing sponsors, along with other Pittsburgh bike racing supporters. Please let us know if you’d like to contribute any swag. Thank you!

As the name of the race suggests, the majority of the trails were pretty rocky! It was a nice surprise to do a long race that wasn’t on a ton of gravel and double track. With the exception of the first climb, the entire race consisted of fun, technical trails. Well, the downhills were fun at least, but after every downhill comes an uphill. Most of the climbs were just about as rocky as the downhills were! Fun stuff.

Going into the race, I had set a goal for myself to do 6 laps. Looking at the results from last year, I noticed that only 1 person managed to get the sixth lap in, and I thought that it would be fun to try and do it on my singlespeed.

Despite the 20 minutes or so of heavy rain just before the race, and the few scattered showers in the morning, the trails were holding up pretty well. At least I thought so, until I started my second lap. After about 50 people had ridden the trails, there sure were some slippery sections on some of the climbs. There also were additional races starting just about every hour, so that added another challenge to maintaining my pace.

I kept my pit stops short, just spending enough time to grab a fresh bottle every lap, and a mouthfull of food every other lap, and it seemed to work out perfectly.

In the end, I got 6 laps in about 6:50, and finished in first place in singlespeed, and second overall. There were only 3 of us that managed to get 6 laps in, and I feel really good about the outcome of this race.

Next up, I think I’m going to attempt my first 12 hour race, at the 12 Hours of Tsali, near Bryson City, NC in 2 weeks. This should be interesting.

Aliquippa’s second week brought cold weather and a windy back stretch. In the 4/5 race Jacob Yundt showed his dominance in the field with a consecutive win in the bunch sprint. Dan Greene had yet another strong showing in the 1/2/3 field and was able to take 2nd.

Thanks again to Beaver Valley Velo for hosting this great series.

The annual Aliquippa Training Crit Series got off to a very wet start. Despite the rain, Iron City Bikes had strong representation in the 1/2/3 race (John, Paul, Steve) and the 4/5 race (Dave, Jacob). The 4/5 race went very well: A four-man break (Nehemiah McHugh, Greg Flood, Jacob Yundt, and Joe Biss) opened a gap with ~6 to go. The break held to the end of the race with the victory going to Jacob. Dave finished with the lead group in 8th place.

Shaky video of the finish (with narration by Emily!) below:

Unfortunately the rainy weather proved to be very unlucky for the 1/2/3 riders. Paul and John crashed early in the race and Steve flatted out with ~5 to go.

By reading the course description, I was able to find out that the race was basically a singletrack sandwich, with about 35 total miles of trails, divided between the beginning and end of the race. The remainder of the race would be on gravel fire roads in between.

My only real worry for the day was the weather forecast. They were calling for an 80% chance of thunderstorms all day, some of which could be severe. We were told at the start line that they may cut the race short due to weather, and would let us know on the course. Luckily the rain had stopped just in time for the start, so we didn’t have to stand around in the rain just before the race.

Time to go! The race started with a very fast pavement climb on Highway 74, and I was giving it my all on the singlespeed. I couldn’t quite go fast enough to keep up with the lead group of 30 or so racers, and watched them slip away. Crest the hill, downhill for a bit, then turn into singletrack. Stuck in a line, no sense of trying to pass, there isn’t anywhere to go. I kept hoping for a place to pass, but stuck for a while. No big deal, I’ll be able to make it up later. Managed to not hit the turtle that was stopped in the middle of the trail. Too bad most other people hit the little guy.

Pop out onto a screaming fire road descent down to the river, along the river for a while, back to the start, long climb up the mountain, wash, rinse, repeat… For most of the race, I was riding by myself, which I am sure cost me some time. About 30 miles in, I kinda zoned out, and was taking it way too easy. I finally got caught by a couple of people, and remembered that I was supposed to be racing. Game on…

About 50 miles in, the rain started. It had been quite windy for an hour or so, and I was able to see storm clouds in the distance, but it seemed that we were riding in a little pocket in the storm keeping us dry. That was about to change.

About 50 miles into the race, after about an hour of pretty intense wind, the sky finally opened up. I had been riding with glasses on, but for the most part it was impossible to see while going about 30 mph on some of the fire road downhills, so I thought that I would try to take them off for a bit. I very quickly realized that it was much better not being able to see because of fogged up glasses, than having eyes full of mud and sand. Thankfully, there weren’t too many obstacles in my way.

Rolling into checkpoint 4, with a newly clean bike, I refilled my bottles, and headed out for another long grind on some back roads. There was a hard rain for about an hour, and then it cleared up for the most part, which ended up being bad in a way, because the bike started accumulating mud. The last 10 miles or so of the race happened to be on some pretty fun and fast singletrack, that really wasn’t too bad as long as I was able to keep my speed in check.

I was starting to get a bit hungry, and a little worried, as my garmin was telling me that I had 10 miles to go, when all of a sudden I popped out onto the road into the last stretch through the parking lot. I guess all of the heavy tree cover really does have an affect on it…

A great race, and I met my goal of 8 hours and 30 minutes, with a finishing time of 8:17. Looking forward to the next long race, a 6 hour enduro version of On the Rocks at French Creek.

Iron City Bikes is pleased to announce the second Goldsprints of 2010. This time we mean business and are pulling out all the stops for another crazy night of beer, music, and indoor bicycle racing.

Date: Friday April 23, 2010

Place: OTB Bicycle Cafe

Time: 8pm – 2AM

$2 Magic Hat beers, Prizes from Fat heads, Mad Mex, Jimmy Johns and More

Bring your friends and call them out to race head to head, at the end of the night we will take the fastest twelve men and eight women all night and seed a bracket for head to head mayhem. Thats right brackets have been reduced by more than half. Qualify as many times as you like and set a fast time for one of the 4 first round byes

$10 to Race, or Sign up / Renew your bike Bike Pittsburgh membership and race for free. First 30 to register get a free t-shirt printed by our friends at Ink Division Screen Printing.

Sponsored By: Urban Velo, Magic Hat brewing, Fat Heads, OTB Bicycle Cafe, and Iron City Bikes

Saturday, March 20th
5:00pm
Starts at “The Wall” in Oakland
$10
Bring a bag
Afterparty at the new BikePGH headquarters in Lawrenceville

See you there!

Wow. What a night. Once again we teamed up with our sponsors to create an epic night of head-to-head roller racing action. Snowed In— held at Over the Bar Bicycle cafe this past friday—was the first team fund raiser of the year. The Black & Gold Sprint set up provided by our friends at Urban Velo, was newly configured with easy to mount, color-coded platforms as well as updated software that kept things rolling smoothly all night. We had a record turn out of 53 (!) racers register for the event and A LOT more people who just came to party. To keep everyones spirits rolling smoothly, Magic Hat Brewery hooked us up with 2 kegs of Roxy Rolls that were a real crowd pleaser.

Things got off to a quick start with many racers showing up early for a bite to eat and to get the beers flowing. By 8:30, the bar was packed and the races were on. With such a large number of participants there were qualifying heats right up to our cut off time of 10:00. With everyone having a chance to get at least one qualifying time, we took on the task of making a massive bracket for the real competition of the night. We had enough people to do brackets with 32 men and 16 women. Most of the usual suspects found their way into the bracket and the racing was intense. Barring a few minor set-backs with our pedals, the equipment took the onslaught well.

Of course, in the end, there could only be two winners. The final mens race was between Travis and Seth with Seth coming out victorious. In the final women’s heat it came down to Erica and Rachel with Erica taking the win. In addition to the head-to-head action, the fastest time of the night belonged to Wikar Kadhim with a blistering 11.69. Congratulations to our race winners and to everyone who came out for the challenge.

In addition to the prizes that were awarded to our winners (awesome gift baskets from Fat Heads) we were also raffling off other goodies for the people who were betting. We’d like to extend a huge thank you to everyone who helped sponsor the event. We wouldn’t have had such an amazing time without your contribution. This was a huge fund raising event for the team and I think I can speak for everyone when I say that we can’t wait for the season to start! This was a great start to what will surely be an even better year. Thanks to everyone who came out to race or just hang out. If you have any photos from the event, please add them to the Black & Gold Sprints Flickr Pool. We hope to see you at our next party!

This night would not have been possibly without the generous contributions of our sponsors: Over the Bar Cafe, Iron City Bikes, Urban Velo, Magic Hat Brewery, Fat Heads, Ink Division, Commonwealth Press, BikePGH, Mad Mex, Jimmy Johns, EU Cycle Imports, and Iron City Tech.

Qualifying Times on page 2