Philly Is The Star Of The Philadelphia Cycling Classic

PHILADELPHIA — The Benjamin Franklin Parkway was designed in 1917 by French architect Jacques Gréber in the European style of boulevard, specifically inspired by the Champs-Élysées, which means it is a thematically apt and suitably picturesque locale for the end of a cycling race and a horrible—I mean absolutely dogshit, for all involved parties—road. On Aug. 30, the first Philadelphia Cycling Classic in a decade, by simple virtue of being a cycling race that necessitated mass closure of roads to their invasive predators (cars), rendered the Parkway back down to its theoretical beauty: a shaded, expansive corridor connecting City Hall to the Philadelphia Art Museum, one which happens to be flanked by flags. Pedestrian traffic was dictated by volunteers in bright orange shirts. Sometimes the impending cyclists were well-telegraphed by the blaring horns of incoming organizer cars, but other stragglers were conveyed by word of mouth. "Batter up!" one volunteer yelled, before the whistling and cowbells commenced for a lone cyclist. When the volunteer waved a crowd of pedestrians by to the shaded side of the road, she directed us to pause halfway and look to the left for potential cyclists. I stood somewhere between India's and Iceland's flags to watch the final stretch of the women's race, mostly on a gigantic screen set in the middle of the road. The crowd was a mix of locals, legitimate enthusiasts of the sport of cycling, more general enthusiasts of cycling in general, and foreign tourists. To my left were three older men who had done some amateur bike races before. To my right, past India, was a crowd of spectators sitting on bleachers.

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