Dan Chabanov, winner of the Red Hook Criterium III, an unsanctioned, late-night street track bike race over the cobblestones in Red Hook. No brakes allowed. Due to local and national coverage, the illegal race drew a decent crowd this past Saturday around 11PM, and managed to complete with fairly minimal injury and disaster.  The only sustained injury I’ve heard talk about was a collision resulting in a racer’s finger getting broken.

K-Tel (left) placed second in the 20-lap race. Lucas Brunelle (on the right), a videographer and cyclist, rode along on a multi-speed road bike while equipped with video cameras to film the event, while not actually racing himself.

Left: race organizer, Dave Trimble, on a borrowed tall bike. I also liked the “Boston Straight Edge” jacket the other guy is wearing. Right: a spectator boldly helps to delay an empty NYC bus from plowing through the race, allowing the pack to ride through, despite making the driver completely irate. Other spectators blocked the bus from the front.

• The race culminated in a full-on podium ceremony on a collapsing concrete slab over the water, complete with podium girls to kiss the winners, and the traditional spraying of champagne and prizes being awarded.

• I was cracking up when people were randomly saying “don’t steal bikes, bro,” over the course of the night, referencing this now-infamous video, shot in the East Village last year.

• People have a weird relationship with celebrating holidays here in Brooklyn. For example, a few blocks from my apartment, there’s a home with St. Patrick’s Day decorations up (and that’s understandable, the event was only about 8 days ago), but they also have Halloween decorations up (which was closer to 5 months ago).  This evening, walking back home with Jenn from dinner at Nuevo Mexico, we noticed the apartment building on 5th Avenue that maintains two large Christmas wreaths, year round, with lit, multi-colored lights. I’ve noticed that Valentine’s Day last month caused at least one home in Windsor Terrace to finally take down Christmas stuff, replacing it with a red paper heart in each window (I haven’t checked to see if those hearts are still up over a month later). Don’t get me wrong: I don’t want to sound like a grouch about people’s happiness and holiday cheer; on the contrary, I fully support it.  It does continue to baffle me though, I do wonder if the completely erratic decorations are an indication of interior apartment hoarding of possessions?

Howard Beach, Queens.

From left: Charlie, B.Nasty (borrowing my Kogswell because a car hit him, smashing his main commuter last Friday; he walked away from the crash without a scratch though, tough dude), D.Mo, Jenn, and DLISH. We finally made it over to the Jamaica Bay Wildlife Refuge (not pictured), during a 40-mile trek in Brooklyn and Queens.