1536 racers registered for the 2012 edition of the Barry-Roubaix. Weather in Michigan so far this season has been anything but normal. It will go down on record as the warmest month of March in history. We saw many days of temps over 70 and 80 degrees leading up to the race. It made the roads quite dry and dusty around here but that all changed Friday when we received over an inch and a half of rain overnight and left us with an overcast but mild 60 degree temps on Saturday. The course was not dry anymore! Some large puddles on the two-tracks were the new challenge of the day while the rest of the course had damp roads that made for some very fast conditions. A new record was set by Mike Anderson at 2:51:05. Mike Anderson and Brian Matter battled hard all the way to the line and we had similar battles all day long. Check out this one; Devin Deboer and Mark Quist of QD Racing barely nudged out Earl Hillaker and Gabe Niehof of Founders Alger Racing in the 36 mile tandem class with a time of 1:52:41 and 1:52:42 respectively. There are tons of great videos and interviews at Cycling Dirt. Thanks Thom!

On a completely different note we were once again blown away by the amount of attempted and successful theft by racers. Racers were caught lifting bottle openers, t-shirts, posters, Heed containers, raffle prizes and even vendor banners right off the shelter walls. My Barry-Roubaix banner alone cost about $90. A few that got caught were male adults that claimed they just wanted a souvenir. Good one guys, real nice work.

Improvements? Parking, entry drive and finish line set up were the number one items of improvement for 2012 and I think we delivered on that, now some minor tweaks are needed in 2013 to make the race even better. We will strive to continue making this event grow and improve every year.

I would like to thank the Thornapple Valley Church friends and families that performed great volunteer service all day long!

Hope to see you again in 2013! Rick and Cathy