Empire State Games Qualifier

NASSAU – Bicycle racing is a funny sport. If you’re doing it right, it’s rather painful. The person who wins a race is usually the person who was able to stand the most pain, or the person who can capitalize on the suffering of others. On Saturday, I’ll be joining about 74 of my fellow sufferers in a race to qualify for the Empire State Games.

Since 1978, athletes representing six regions of New York State have come together to compete in 28 athletic contests at the summer games. Modeled after the Olympics, the Empire State Games were the first “state games.” Now, more than 40 states hold similar games, and more than half a million people participate across the nation. In New York, there are now four sets of games, with one set in the summer, one in the winter, one for high school students, one for the disabled.

Just like in the Olympics, not anyone can participate. For cyclists, since we’re a clan that thrives on pain, qualifying to represent your region involves suffering through a 75-mile qualifying race. Your prize if you’re one of the first ten across the finish line? A ticket to the summer games.

This summer, they’re being held in Binghamton. At the games, those who have qualified from the six regions will compete in four events. The first is an individual time trial, in which cyclists will race alone, as hard as they can over a ten-mile course. Winning times will be around or below 20 minutes. Four riders from each region will also compete in a 40-mile team time trial, in which teams of four riders will compete against the clock.

In more standard road racing formats, competitors will also face off in a 78-mile road race and a 32-mile criterium, all packed into four days of racing in late July. That’s a lot of suffering.
For the Adirondack Region, which includes Saratoga County and most of the capital district, the qualifier will be held here in Nassau this Saturday at 9 a.m., rain or shine. Pre-registration is mandatory, so visit www.empirestategames.org.

Unlike most bicycle races, it’s free to participate in the qualifier for anyone who holds a USA Cycling license. Also, unlike most bicycles races, this one isn’t broken down into experience categories; first-year racers with a category 5 license will line up with semi-pro category 1 racers. Men and women will also race together, although women will race half the distance of the men, completing four laps of a 9.5-mile course, while the men will race eight laps.

My own history with the Empire State Games is short and sweet. While living in Brooklyn, during the summer of 2006, I raced in the New York City regional qualifier. As are many bike races in the teeming confines of the city, this one is held in Brooklyn’s Prospect Park.

I know Prospect Park like the back of my hand. It’s less than two miles from my parent’s house
in Brooklyn. As a kid I played little league baseball and youth soccer in the park. As a bike racer, I’ve spent countless hours riding laps around the park’s 3-mile loop road. It was a boring place to ride, but it was never more boring than the morning I raced the NYC regional qualifier in Prospect Park.

The 75-mile qualifier required 25 laps around the park’s rolling loop. As a lowly category 4, I knew that I would have only a small chance of placing in the top ten, but I figured I’d give it a shot. Besides, how often do you get to race your bike for free?

So, as luck would have it, the skies opened and released a deluge on the morning of the race, so I saddled up for 75 soggy miles of suffering. At the end of, I had managed to finish, and did not qualify. I was tired wet and cold, and not really interested in racing my bike ever again. But, of course, I’m a glutton for punishment, so I came back, probably the next weekend.

I had to skip the NYC regional qualifier in 2007, so this year will be the best chance that I’ve had to qualify for the games during my career as a cyclist.

I won’t be so bold as to make any predictions ahead of Saturday’s qualifiers, but I will say that there are some very strong riders living in the Adirondack region, racers who know how to suffer. The open racing format could throw out a few surprises, as racers from the lower categories will do their best to unseat more established racers.

Regardless of who comes out on top, one thing is certain: only those with a strong desire to inflict punishment on themselves will be racing with an eye toward July’s state games.