Taming the Snake...

The Alley, the Serpent of Pain, and many others are names I have decided to give Snake Alley. You may have heard the stories, you may have seen the pictures, but non of them do it justice. The only true way to appreciate the Snake is to see it in person. It is a 12 degree grade of 5 switchbacks, all paved with cobblestone. There were sixty-five participants in the cat 4 race, including yours truly. From the start we made a right turn onto a hill, which is very similar to the Iowa City Crit hill. Once at the top of the hill we entered Snake Alley.

Cat 4 Entering the Alley

Once we were in the Alley we stayed together for the first couple laps. Several riders made mistakes and ended up falling over on the climb. Once you fall over, you can only hope for some one to help push you back up the hill; otherwise, you can't clip in and you have to run up to the top. Thankfully I climbed the Alley every single time.

Climbing the Snake


Once at the top it was all downhill. The only thing to do here was to recover for yet another climb. It was easy to get speeds upward of 30 mph without having to pedal, which made it that much quicker to getting back to the Snake. I ended up 38 out of 65 riders. I felt great and will definitely be looking forward to doing this race again next year. Many worthwhile lessons were learned and I will use those lessons in future races.

The pain of climbing



Joe Savoie helping out Vaughn after a slight mishap on the Snake.

There are many more pictures, and a big thanks go out to fellow teammate Janna Vavra for using my camera and getting some great pictures of the cat 4 race.