Long Island\lon-GI-land\, noun:

1. An island in southeast New York, USA with an area of 3,567 square miles and a population of 7,448,618 as of the 2000 census, making it the largest island in the 48 contiguous U.S. states and the most populated in any U.S. state or territory.
2. Long Island is known for its affluence and high quality of life.
3. The island is much longer than it is wide, jutting out some 118 miles from New York Harbor.

Well after two weeks on the road travelling across the country I decided it would be fun to spend some more time in the car and drive to the tip of Long Island for a double weekend. I didn’t have the Long Island weekend in my original schedule of races, because I didn’t know about it until Troy Wells told me about it, and it just so happens that it worked out to head out there after a little pit stop at my uncle’s house in Pennsylvania. It was another good chunk of driving out to the isle especially with the construction, tolls, and traffic heading through NYC. We had booked a hotel in Edison, NJ for the weekend to save some money but unfortunately our estimated drive time of two hours turned into four. So with the hope of finding a different, closer hotel or better yet some host housing we packed everything back into the van Saturday morning and hit the road. Luckily for pops and myself the house that Troy Wells, Matt Shriver, and Greg Reain (Canadian Champ) were staying in was otherwise unoccupied for the weekend so we commandeered a couch and some floor space for the two following nights. The house was near Sag Harbor and was only accessible by a sandy, rocky, dirt road that cut through the woods and down a very rutted out little steep hill. Inside the house was a stockpile of camping gear, bikes, motorcycles, two Bronco trucks, a dune buggy, and pretty much everything you could ever need to climb Everest. The racing weekend turned out to be a great one for Barry Wicks who got second to the word champion Erwin Vervecken in a sprint to the line on Saturday and then pulled off a big win on Sunday after Vervecken fouled up a section of course and broke his rear derailleur. My weekend on the other hand wasn’t as successful and I ended up finishing 20th on Saturday and 25th on Sunday… yikes. I’ve already put that weekend behind me and attributed the heavy legs and poor riding to the long hours in the car driving across the country. My focus is now on this double Gloucester weekend that will be starting in a bit more than a few hours. It’s really cold this morning but the storm clouds are out of sight and the sun is shining bright.