If you don’t love the the Red Hook Crit you probably haven’t heard of it. If Bicycles were cool, the riders of the the Red Hook Crit would be like Miles Davis. Since 2008 a bunch of maniacs would race each other on bicycles with no gears and no brakes. Since 2015 the Red Hook has expanded over the pond to a few places in Europe and lucky for me one of those place is London and to focus the map of you mind further, the Greenwich Peninsula. Below are some of my photos from the event.

First thing is some practice laps, but the real first thing is the women’s race. This had been hard to watch, Dani king began dominating the race from about lap 10 or 15. When racers fall behind the motorbike that tails the race they are eliminated. The moto takes no prisoners, if you are too slow you are out. This race though Dani Began lapping other riders. She didn’t let up either, she ended the race a lap ahead leaving Ash Duban and Jasmine Dotti to fight for 2nd and 3rd. Below you can see Dani keeping her cool and reminding the crowd what spot she’s in. Once all but three riders remained the organisers called off the motorbike just to keep the podium full. To fully supplant her dominance Dani lapped the last two racers and finished the race a lap an half ahead.

The Red Hook Crit is the product of David Trimble’s hard work and organisation. As well as being there to get photos I also volunteered to help set up. I took took the 7:00 to 13:00 slot so that I could get a go on track. David was there to hand me my crew shirt at 7:00 and then he was there to help with the clean up at 23:00 the guy worked like a machine. Between those hours he also lead out the races, waved some flags and made sure all whole thing went swimmingly, which is quite the accomplishment when the idea behind the crit is “What if Mad Max raced around on bicycles”.

The Men’s race was a bit faster, longer and harder. Colin Strickland took the top spot. It wasn’t so easy this time and it took a sprint finish to win, although he still made the time to strike a victory pose. I moved from my spot where I got the photo of Dani going over the finish line to the one below. I don’t really regret it as I still have nice photos but I would have liked to get a photo from in front of the line. Below is the back side of Strickland’s win.

The Red Hook Crit is pretty stylish, the bikes are often so customized and the kits are so beautifully designed it can feel like a cat walk show. There is also hip Brooklyn-esque vibe to the event that attracts the sort of hip Brooklyn-esque looking people. The guy below looks so cool-not-cool with that mustache that he’d probably win the style race if there was one.

The women are also pretty cool looking. Above is Jess May of the group Velociposse Femme Brutale. Many of the women’s teams have “Whip it” style style names and “Whip it” style tough personas. Its a tough sport and before the races began a rider had been hospitalised so any of the racers would have to be tough too. In summary the race is amazing and ill be going again in 2017 for more photos and maybe another free crew shirt.

This last photo really shows the spirit of the event. It’s a little cheeky, super stylish and a lot of fun.