By Jake Byk
On a surprisingly warm Saturday morning in November, Marty’s Reliable Cycle held its first cyclocross, a blur of pedaling fury whirling across the sprawling, abandoned campus of the Greystone Park State Psychiatric hospital in Morris Plains.
“I spent two hours blowing leaves,” joked Marty Epstein, coordinator of the event and owner of Marty’s Reliable Cycle in Morristown.
Cyclocross events stretch from September into January, with thousands of cyclists racing around manmade courses. As the racers place higher in the ranks, they rise in category – starting at C and going to A – to become state champions.
Epstein spent several hours Friday setting up the course that begins at Greystone’s famous Kirkbride Administrative building and winds through the fields on either side of Central Avenue. It even includes a spherical shape at the end of the laps that run parallel to the now demolished Curry Building.
Epstein coined the dramatic finish “the wheel of death.”
“Cyclocross is becoming really popular,” he said, as the Men’s C Division assembled on Central Avenue.
Epstein previously only did mountain biking events. His cyclo course is 1.3 miles in total, and eight races were scheduled for Saturday. Roughly 200 participants rode their cycles around the deteriorating Greystone campus.
“Greystone is a centralized location, and it’s easy to put [up the] course” Epstein explained.
“Is my tire flat?!” yelled a desperate cyclist as he rounded a bend. The course was rough; many cyclists claimed they had popped tires. Other than that, the majority of cyclists gave Epstein’s track high marks.
“It was challenging,” said Matt Lefkowitz, a Morris County resident who rides with a group called HighGear. He used to work in the bike industry and cyclocross seemed like a natural progression.
A local, Brooke Wilson, was gasping for air as she completed the final lap.
“It was pretty hard,” said Wilson, who took up the sport in late September.
Jake Byk is a senior at Morristown High School and a frequent MorristownGreen.com contributor.
