Billy Santana takes Atlanta's first GoldSprints Tournament!

On May 31st, 2008, history was made when NoBrakesATL, Kazane Racing, and Faster Mustache presented the south's first GoldSprints Tournament.

Cycling enthusiasts, bike messengers, commuters, hip kids, and drunks packed into Lenny's Saturday evening to witness an exciting form of bicycle competition: GoldSprints.

Faster Mustache hardware guru Seth Kingry led the development of the hi-tech system, which saw two racers sprint head to head on stationary bicycles, wired to a computer that projected their progress in real time. Races ranged from 200m to 1k and from 18 seconds to just under a minute. Super-high-cadence spinning is the key to winning this event. Races were held on-stage in Lenny's bar so that crowds could gather, cheer, and jeer.

After a round of qualifiers and bug fixes, the early heats saw racers eliminated quickly and brutally. Appearances were made by endurance mountain bike champions Eddie O'Dea and Namrita O'Dea. Crowds pressed in, giving riders the most in-your-face encouragement they have ever experienced:

A-Ron was eliminated narrowly by the ruthless Kyle of Ink and Dagger Tattoo, who surprised folks with incredible speed and power. Hodge from Addictive Cycles, who had spent all day drinking at the East Atlanta Beer Festival and consumed an entire large pizza right before the race, knocked Kashief out of the race and then promptly vomited all over the outside wall at Lenny's.

A field of 24 racers was narrowed to 8 in two single elimination heats. The remaining racers, already blasted from the intense competition, where Austin Crenshaw, Jenny, Jason M, John 2Tone, Kyle, me (Kurt) and Julian. While Hodge had technically advanced to the final 8, he has puked out all of his fuel and was unable to continue. Much to Crenshaw's dismay, the crowd elected Billy Santana as his stand-in!

Billy lived up to his legend and pleased the crowd by sweeping all the way to the finals, where he would face the greatest challenge of his life: me. Lucky for Billy, I had just finished the greatest challenge of my life: beating 2tone in a head-to-head grudge match! My SUPER-narrow win (.03 seconds!) settled (for now!) the good natured rivalry we have shared since our tie in the NoBrakes Omnium at FM.24.07.

For the final match, the length of the race was nearly doubled and Billy stripped down to his briefs. The crushing defeat that I suffered at the hands of Santana can be seen in camera-phone glory below:

This was, for me, the most exciting crowd-participatory form of bicycle racing that I have ever seen. I want to send a HUGE shout out to NoBrakes Atlanta for going out of their way to help us get great prizes and for lending the use of some very cool Swobo track bikes. They also fielded some great racers and were all around supportive.

Also, a big shout to Stratton of Keirin Culture who gave us a great deal on a Kazane Track frame and was also very supportive. If you are in the market for a new track bike, you would be stupid not to consider a Kazane, and you would be silly not to get it built up by the guys at NoBrakes.

Other sponsors that donated prizes or generally helped out were The Gear Revival and 55 Nine Performance.

Photos from this story were taken by Chris Kelly and TimothyJ.
Click their names to see all of their shots from the event!

There is a really great recap over at NoBrakes.
And finally, the results: