On July 10, the first New Orleans Sprints Indoor Bike Race was held at Whirling Dervish. The race began a little after 10:30 and consisted of about two hours of racing and numerous, trivial technical difficulties. Two bikers raced each other on fixed gear bikes mounted on rollers. The winners of those races advanced into the next round. The overall winner, Willy, exceeded 60 mph and won a bar tap and a set of bike grips.
To be honest, when I first heard that there was an indoor bike race at Whirling Dervish I was excitedly hoping for a drunken, ill-conceived race track, and was a little disappointed to find out that the bikes would be stationary. Nonetheless, the race was a lot of fun. The crowd, a mix of hipsters, bike punks, and half-interested bar patrons, reached about 60, 15 of which were competitors.
NOLAbikerace.com, an organization that also runs three annual holiday alley cat races, named Cancel Christmas, Eliminate Easter and Fuck the 4th, organized Thursday’s race.
