Finally! Tour Da Chicago Pictures

About three weeks ago was the stairmaster, the final stage of the Tour da Chicago. For those of you who don't know, the Tour da Chicago is a series of winter races organized by Chicago's bike messenger community. The final stage involves racing around downtown Chicago and running up and down a bunch of stairs. Great fun.

This was my fourth Tour da Chicago, and my third stairmaster (I only did one race my first year). I have to say, this years course was far more challenging than previous years. There is always one neutral lap to help people get accustomed to the complex course. This year it rained during that lap. I think there was something like 5 crashes just during the practice lap. We usually have a manifest to stamp at each checkpoint, but by the second or third checkpoint, all our manifests had disintegrated due to the wetness. So there was no way to really keep track of where everyone had been. Some of the checkpoint personnel just waved us through, but others tried unique ways to deal with the situation including marking us on the face with black markers and giving us handfuls of cheese popcorn as proof that we passed the checkpoint. By the third lap, most of the checkpoints were abandoned.

Still a damn fun time.

So here are the pictures:

















Here are two pre-race pictures of Clare and Pete putting their game faces on.

Oh, and one disclaimer, Since I was racing all of my pictures are ones I took post race. Sorry, no action shots.




Pete, Lucy, and Emily.






Note: That is not Ketchup.






Chris looking very clean.





Ah! The good life. Clare and me.





Aaarrrrgggghhhh! Spot the pirate.






This was one of the two guys who came all the way from NYC. They're sponsored by Puma.






More After-party action.






Pete and me.






Clare claiming a prize.