This is what it looks like when nearly 100 riders, their team cars, race staff, and emergency responders whiz by at 40+ miles per hour.

By the way, Hincapie finished second this year. And I’ll reiterate what I wrote last year:

“This is a one-day race for the American title and fans have two ways to partake in the event — they can travel to Greenville to watch the race live or they can constantly refresh the #uspro hashtag on Twitter. There is a helicopter feed that you can stream online, but it lacks audio and the view is often obstructed. Are there really no companies out there who will sponsor/underwrite a portion of the cost of covering the event properly?

I hate to overgeneralize, but cycling is predominately a white-collar hobby and fans are usually both financially and emotionally invested in the sport. A real broadcast would break even at worst.”

The first year, I managed to stay on for maybe two seconds (the second year, I barely made it out of the gate). I remember the cowboy at the bull pen casually saying as he helped me tie my left hand to the bull, “when you hit the ground, you better hit it running.” Then I remember holding my right hand high in the air in a display of iconic bravado while whispering “go.” The only thing I recall from that point on was that the bull greatly resented being ridden like a horse. He bucked and brayed like crazy, my other hand quickly grabbed onto the rope, and I was flung through the air like a rag doll.

As I hit the ground, I heard the crowd let out a collective “ooh” and I was over the fence in less time than I had been on the bull. The rodeo clowns were giggling loudly and I overheard one of them say, “he’s ridin’ ‘em Mexican-style.” I don’t know what that means, but I’m pretty sure it’s an insult. When I got back to my cluster of friends, they said the bull had tried to gore me with his horn and barely missed. Instead, he left a big streak of bullsnot on my back.

In case you’re wondering, they don’t just let any idiot walk up and hop on a bull. You have to show up a week early, sober, to sign a bunch of forms and pay a fifty dollar registration fee. Well, I guess it’s more accurate to say that they will let any idiot hop on a bull, just as long as that idiot pre-registers.

We watched the first trip down the mountain at a tight curve from Piney Mountain Road onto North Pleasantburg Drive. After that lap, we watched the remaining circuits from Cleveland Park downtown. The first (or last, depending on your browser) picture shows the view from atop Paris Moutnain. The following images show the breakaway coming down the mountain for the first time. You can see Ben King from team Radio Shack at the back of the trio. After the third trip over the mountain, Ben was riding solo. He maintained his lead for an impressive win. George Hincapie, a Greenville resident and three-time national champion, finished fifth.

Click on the first image to enlarge, then use your right arrow key to advance:

Click here to see pictures from last year’s race. Next year, I think we’re going to camp out on Paris mountain and then watch the end of the race at the finish line.

NOTE: This is a one-day race for the American title and fans have two ways to partake in the event — they can travel to Greenville to watch the race live or they can constantly refresh the #uspro hashtag on Twitter. There is a helicopter feed that you can stream online, but it lacks audio and the view is often obstructed. Are there really no companies out there who will sponsor/underwrite a portion of the cost of covering the event properly? There are already two announcers calling the race in front of the helicopter video at the finish line. All they need to add are two cameramen on the back of motorcycles, a camera on Main Street, and an engineer editing the three feeds. Let the program start two hours before the expected finish, recap what’s happened so far, and vary the commentary with previously recorded interviews. Sell it on Pay Per View for $25. I hate to overgeneralize, but cycling is predominately a white-collar hobby and fans are usually both financially and emotionally invested in the sport. A real broadcast would break even at worst.

The films have to revolve around a single sport and must include a decent amount of playing time in order for me to consider it a true “Sports Movie.” For example, Tin Cup is obviously a sports movie because of the plot and playing time. The Sandlot qualifies as well, but barely. In contrast, Resurrecting the Champ revolves around boxing but isn’t a sports movie in my opinion. Neither is The Black Stallion, even though it concludes with a horse race. Anyway, here’s the list:

Top 25 Sports Movies of All Time:

1. Hoosiers
2. The Natural
3. Rudy
4. Rocky II
5. Miracle
6. 61*
7. For Love of the Game
8. Seabiscuit
9. The Greatest Game Ever Played
10. Field of Dreams
11. Mystery, Alaska
12. Wind
13. Cinderella Man
14. Eight Men Out
15. Rocky
16. Any Given Sunday
17. The World’s Fastest Indian
18. The Hustler
19. The Endless Summer
20. Caddyshack
21. Major League
22. Tin Cup
23. Invincible
24. Remember the Titans
25. Bad News Bears

Honorable Mentions (Or, 25 more, with special attention to obscure sports):

Victory
1. Any Given Sunday
2. Breaking Away
3. Wimbledon
4. Days of Thunder
5. American Flyers
6. Aspen Extreme
7. The Program
8. The Best of Times
9. The Flying Scotsman
10. K2
11. The Rookie
12. Blue Chips
13. The River Wild
14. Brian’s Song
15. Goal: The Dream Begins
16. The Longest Yard
17. Rocky IV
18. Brewster’s Millions
19. Rocky III
20. Soul of the Game
21. 8 Seconds
22. The Pistol
23. Side Out
24. Downhill Racer

Movies That Have a Place In Our Hearts (Or, a little nostalgia never hurt anyone):

1. Rad
2. Longshot
3. Rocky Balboa
4. Winners Take All
5. By The Sword
6. The Scout
7. Bull Durham
8. Kingpin
9. Happy Gilmore
10. Let it Ride
11. Paper Lion
12. The Legend of Bagger Vance
13. Heaven Can Wait
14. North Dallas Forty
15. Slap Shot
16. American Anthem
17. Hot Dog: The Movie
18. Ice Castles
19. The Pride of the Yankees
20. Cool Runnings
21. Diggstown
22. Talladega Nights
23. Rebound
24. The Last American Hero
25. Caddyshack II

That’s my list. I guess the most important selection/ranking criteria for me was… If I’m watching TV on a rainy Sunday afternoon at 3:37 pm and a game is coming on at 4:15 pm, I’m probably flipping through the channels looking or something to watch until the game comes on. If I stumble upon a movie in the first tier, the odds are close to 100% that I’ll put down the remote and probably forget to change it back in time for the start of the game. The movies are that good. The same situation plays out for the remaining films, but the odds go down for each tier. Does that make sense?

I should add that I omitted several titles on purpose. People always say that they love movies like Chariots of Fire and Raging Bull. That’s probably the cinematic equivalent of Nielsen testers lying about watching NOVA on PBS instead of American Idol on FOX. This is what comes to mind when I think of Raging Bull. Movies like that simply aren’t very entertaining. As a result, they’re not on my list.

Still, don’t assume that because a movie you like isn’t listed here, it means I didn’t consider it (although it might). This isn’t a database of all sports-related films. There are also plenty of Almost Sports Movies, like The Champ, The Eiger Sanction and The Hurricane, but I just didn’t think they qualified.

I’d love to hear your thoughts on my criteria and my selections.

We moved away from DC just before the stadium was built and were amazed by the development in the surrounding area. Although still in the early stages of gentrification, the neighborhood is much nicer and more developed than it was when I lived there.

I used to go to a Taco Bell on South Capitol, about four blocks from where the stadium now sits. You had shout your order through three inches of Plexiglas to workers who were exemplars of incompetent disrespect. Once you placed your order, you waited 20 minutes to hear your number called. If you were lucky, you only had to entertain one or two con stories from panhandlers who lurked among the customers.

In order to get your food order, which was almost always wrong, the employees put the bag in a bulletproof compartment that had two doors. They couldn’t open their door unless yours was closed, and you couldn’t get your food until they secured the door on their side of the clear wall. Sometimes they left their door cracked and walked away to do who knows what in the back. If you tapped on the glass, the person working the register would shoot you a dark and piercing glare. The message was clear; “You just bought yourself another minute of waiting. Tap the glass again and see what happens.” You felt like a caged rat, wondering what trick you had to perform to get your cheese.

When the Gods of Taco Bell finally graced you with your grab bag of fast food, which may or may not include random side items from the KFC section of the menu, you had to run through a gauntlet of red-eyed bums to get back to your car. The whole endeavor was so bad that I eventually started driving out to Arlington to get my fix. That Taco Bell is now gone, and the whole area looks cleaner than ever before. I still wouldn’t want to be alone on the street after midnight, but the progress is impressive.

This was the fourth year that Greenville has hosted the championship, and it by far the best-attended of the events. I’ve posted a gallery of pictures below the fold:

It may take a moment for the pictures to load:

Well, it only took me seven years to get off the waiting list, the last three of which have been spent in SC. As much as I’d love to go to the home games, there’s no way I can do a nine hour drive every other weekend. They’re probably obstructed view anyway.