Red Hook Crit calling: a quick stop in Milan

The city lights illuminate one of the most spectacular urban races: the Red Hook Criterium arrives in Milan for its 3rd stage, with plenty of shiny brakeless bikes zipping through the darkness and under any weather condition. This is an underground event, born in Brooklyn’s Red Hook district, and it is fast becoming ever more popular with its 7th edition. Simply put: 3 stages throughout the year (NY, Barcelona and Milan), a short urban track, a fixed gear and the night. What makes it so electrifying? The high speeds and the absence of brakes. You need highly developed street-handling skills to swoop through its many bends. And, of course, some guts… or madness, however you prefer. For our part, we can testify that a broken clavicle is no rarity. That said, as proud sponsors we made a quick stop in Milan to meet and support our teams, to take some pics and enjoy the race (yes, sometimes also unpleasant jobs are needed!).

There were about 300 athletes from 25 different countries for the qualifying races which took place during the afternoon: luckily the rain decided to bless us with its presence only in the morning (the volunteers with the mops who had to dry the roads however were not as fortunate), so we could see the show without too much difficulty. Our area was located near the teams’, where we could talk to the athletes and take some shots of them, something which proved a lot harder to do during the race, given the large amount of people present. Despite people getting in the photographer’s way, it was a really wonderful event: if you love the technical side, well, you might have got excited by all the sophisticated bike parts; if you love the lycra and the inspired outfits on the athletes’ muscles, you might also have got excited. We must not forget that there were also a lot of competing women in the first RHC female race, and given that a lady on her own is already beautiful, what more can we add about a lady on a bike?

Finally we must say that after some crashes during the qualifying stages and a wet track affecting the first few competitors, when the night came the 95 riders at the starting line gave us all a really great spectacle, passing 24 times round the 1.27 km track at such incredible speeds, with such steep inclinations in the bends! Naturally after every bend everybody was up on their pedals to keep sprinting in order to maintain the speed and show us the steel-like quads. In the end most people were enthusiastic about the event, except some were crying for not having won the competition who maybe should take it less seriously. However, it was a success.

Here are the pics that our man managed to take, enjoy!