On this Christmas Eve, let’s gather around the tree and let me tell you a tale of one of the best gifts I’ve ever given myself since I never found a bike under my Christmas tree as a kid.
For years it simmered beneath the surface of my adventurous soul, like the Lost Ark or Forrest Fenn’s treasure, calling for my attention and sounding ultra mysterious: The Snake Alley Criterium.
Most of the top bike racers in the US that I chased back in the day had heard of it, but few, if any, had ever partaken. Finally, one day many moons ago, I saw my chance and followed Steve Winwood’s classic advice.
To really understand the essence of this rare jewel in Burlington, Iowa, one must immerse yourself into the local pulse. So on the morning of the event I joined the line in front of the Welcome Center on the banks of the Mississippi River that stretched some 50 yards, or almost the whole length of the building.
One-by-one we filed inside this small town convention center, plopped down a couple of bucks and got a Styrofoam plate. Out the back, the blue smoke billowed into the cloudy, gray sky.
“This is actually great weather,” said one of the sausage grillers in his Kiwanis apron of the cool, overcast skies with an occasional raindrop or two. “If it’s like this, they’ve got nothing better to do than come on down.”
They came in all shapes and sizes. Old and young. Small and big. Families and singles. As they entered the large dining hall, sounds, scents and sights triggered sensual overload.
The sound of Iowa pork sausage sizzling on the grills to the right and pancake flippers scrapping the metal surfaces to the left provided the baseline for this symphony of the senses.
I inhaled an enchanting mixture of sausage, syrup and coffee that transported me back in time to small diners, firefighters’ pancake breakfasts, and Grandma’s kitchen.
The images of smiling faces appeared to stretch to infinity across the lines of tables.
They passed out pancakes like blackjack dealers on the nearby Mississippi riverboats. How many do you want? Two, three, four, five? Even the heartiest of appetites held the line at three. Hey, it’s all-you-can-eat and you don’t have to fill the plate now. There are plenty of roaming folks to refill.
I remembered this placid pace of Iowa. Comfortable. Friendly. Fun. I spent four years up the river in Dubuque. When I tell folks that fact, they usually have a smart-aleck comment or two. I let it slide. They don’t know. I do. So do the folks of Burlington.
With a full stomach as well as caffeine and sugar buzzes, I savored the perfect frame of mind to experience Snake Alley. And it all begins with cobblestones.
What is it with cobblestones, anyways? What is it that makes adults chuck maturity out the window like a mouthful of water when no one is looking the minute a couple of weathered bricks appear in place of a nice, paved, 21st century roadway?
Come on. Adults can walk past puddles — even big, muddy ones — and not jump in the middle. Well, most of you can. Adults can get through the checkout stand at the grocery with only one or two candy bars, most of the time. Adults can take a bath without any floaty toys, and will only stick their toes in the faucet, oh, once or twice.
But cobbles. Furgettabowdit.
There’s nothing smooth about these cobbles, the rougher the look, the more inviting.
See some cobbles and you gotta ride. Gotta get out that bike and hump over them. Gotta feel the hammering shoot from the heels of your hand, through the forearms, across the elbows, up the biceps, into the shoulders and eventually jar the jaw and chattering teeth.
Are we having fun yet? You know it.
Fact is, it hurts. It hurts so good. That’s why there’s more smiling than not when you see bikes rattling across cobblestones. Oh there might not be smiling on the faces. Hey, this is supposed to be battle. Serious stuff. Right. But there’s smiling inside. Deep inside.
Don Proctor knew as much. He knew that the next best thing to bumping and humping the cobbles yourself is to watch someone else enjoying the fun.
Spectating at Snake Alley is an interactive experience.
So way, way back in 1983, when the annual criterium they held in the river town of Burlington, Iowa, was about to turn a mature 11, Proctor, a local high school athletic director and then race promoter, decided he needed to spice things up.
“Don said, ‘We need something to make this more exciting,’ ” says the local radio broadcaster, who has been covering the Snake Alley Criterium for his station for the past 21 years. “And he didn’t have to look very far.”
Nope. Not too many towns have listings in reference books like “Ripley’s Believe It or Not.” Burlington does. Right there in hard cold print, it says “the crookedest street in the world” is in Burlington. Snake Alley. Cobbles and all.
The historic plaque tells it all, the history and how Snake Alley came to be.
An American classic was born. Each year riders come from all across this land, but mainly from the heartland — Iowa, Illinois, Wisconsin, Indiana, Kansas, Minnesota and Nebraska — to experience Shaking Snaking Alley.
Each year the locals crowd the famous stretch of cobbles and witness the insanity. That’s just what it is, insanity. There’s no other way to describe what goes on each Memorial Day weekend. Crazy fun.
Being on the top is the thing to do, and the view is inspiring.
There’s a now former pro who knew Snake Alley quite well. There was a time when he spent his days downtown when the top cyclists came to town. He was working at Brown’s Shoes, which sits about 100 meters from the finish line.
“I used to work right on the course at the shoe store,” he said. “I think I saw my first one when I was 14. Yeah, that’s one of the reasons I got into cycling.”
He eventually moved up the road to Iowa City. They remember him at the shoe store.
“What I remember is that boy could eat,” says the proprietor who hired him years back, “He wasn’t a big kid, but at the Christmas party I remember he would really pack it away.”
That kid? Jason McCartney.
What kind of town is Burlington? If you listen to the radio voice, “It’s a historic river city with church steeples and a good bunch of folks who keep the town clean and safe,” he says. “It’s in transition now. There’s a lot of historic buildings downtown, and a lot of folks who want to make sure they remain.”
It’s not a typical river town, he tells you. Most towns along the mighty Mississippi River are rough, tough towns, where factories belch out smoke. Think “Take This Job and Shove It” rough. That movie was filmed up the river in Dubuque, home to John Deere and meatpacking.
Burlington is a town of around 25,000 where folks smile and say “hi” as they pass you on the street, be your face familiar or not. It’s a place where folks raise kids and have fun. It’s a place where folks appreciate hard work and effort, like churning a bike up their local landmark.
The fans do their best to be entertaining, as well as supportive.
The Snake Alley Criterium course itself hardly resembles a typical American crit. What’s the difference? The climb.
If you wander onto the course along the start-finish straightaway, you might get the wrong impression. When the gun goes off, it’s a 200-meter dash to the corner, then a sharp right-hand turn, and you begin the ascent.
The first of the five switchbacks is the key to success at Snake Alley. You want to be up front before the cycling jam smushes together and folks have to dismount and begin walking on the grade that averages 12.5 percent in that single block.
Least you think that Snake Alley is the toughest alley in Burlington, well, think again. There’s another alley just a block over toward the river. It’s beyond help to be part of the criterium. So they run a mountain bike time trial up it at noon. And the crowds love it.
The folks squeeze between the two old brick buildings with the cobbles wedged between them. Riders charge up a tunnel of roars that compares with the best of the famous mountain climbs of the Grand Tours.
Yep, I treated myself to Snake Alley one fine spring day. A day I’ll never forget.
Time to ride
