Race Report and Gallery: Red Hook Criterium, Brooklyn

Posted on March 27, 2012 by Kevin

With rain looming, the Fifth Annual Red Hook Criterium went off at 9:15 P.M. as is tradition for the young, but already iconic event. Contested by roadies, track racers and messengers alike, track bikes are mandatory and the course is designed to favor those with both endurance and urban handling skills.

With nearly 100 riders taking the line, both male and female, it was a frenetic mass start—the first several laps a rough-and-tumble struggle for position. A lead group eventually forming, the main protagonists included last year’s winner and Brooklyn local Dan Chabanov, along with West Coast players Aaron Bradford from Rock Lobster and riders from the San Francisco-based MASH team.

Chabanov jumped early, with two-thirds of the race yet to play out, yet was able to build a healthy gap, with a lead group of nearly twenty riders chasing hard.

Using the corners to his advantage, Chabanov was able to hold the closing pack, still finishing 10 seconds ahead fo the chase group—plenty of time to coyly blow kisses to ironically bespectacled and mustachioed onlookers on the back stretch of the course.

At the Red Hook, men and women race at the same time, in the same group.
A group of chase riders string it out in pursuit of leader Dan Chabanov.
A lone rider looks for a line on one of the Red Hook Criterium’s darker corners.r

Cornering at night on a fixed gear bike takes some finesse.
Like everything at the Red Hook Criterium, the lead moto is a little different.
The 2012 Red Hook Criterium podium including women’s winner Kacey Manderfield and Dan Chabanov.

Red Hook Criterium organizer David Trimble gives the field instructions prior to the 9:00PM start of the Red Hook Criterium.
Rock Lobster rider Aaron Bradford chases lone leader Dan Chabanov in the late-going of the fifth annual Red Hook Criterium.
Before the Criterium, there’s a 5,000-meter running race that features top talent from as far away as Ethiopia.

Riders in the Red Hook Criterium warmed up inside the Red Hook Cruise Ship Terminal in Brooklyn, New York.
Multi-time winner Dan Chabanov dumped the rest of the field about a third of the way through the 45-minute criterium and soloed to a 10-second victory.
A group of chase riders dive through one of the more well-lit corners on the Red Hook course.

The poster for the fifth-annual Red Hook Criterium.

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