Chocolate milk and spandex and bells, oh my!

Last weekend my little town hosted the largest bike race in North America, The Tour of the Battenkill. Can you believe it? My tiny little town with one traffic light in the center of the village has been the hosting this event for several years. Friday is the main set up day for many of the vendors of the expo, and Saturday numerous bike races in many categories take place. There are official races for kids around 8 or 10 years old to races for adult men and women, and then on Sunday they bring in the pros. Professional bikers from all over the world come the this Tour because of the level of difficulty it provides. One lap is 62 miles and the challenge is that nearly all the roads are curvy back roads, with lots of steep hills, and they alternate between paved and dirt roads. The Pros race this course not once like everyone else, but loop around it twice!

This year I worked at my family's maple booth for the weekend. The best part was watching the kids faces as I made their maple cotton candy.

Here are the winners from one of the races on Saturday. One of the things they are given at the podium is a bottle of chocolate milk, but not just any chocolate milk, it Battenkill Creamery Chocolate milk. You can't understand why people get so excited about it until you try some, so if you are ever around the Washington County area of New York, you've got to try it...apparently, it's also a good recovery drink for the bikers.

Speaking if chocolate milk, my little brother and his friend were given shirts as a thank you for "helping" at the milk booth.

And then my little guy came racing in, placing 7th in the kids race!

Here he is with helmet hair, his medal and wearing and holding new shirts that were given to him. He came home with about 5 new shirts after that weekend!

These two little girls are getting their picture taken with a famous racer Greg Lamond.

There were around 200 pros when the race started, by the time it ended, there were only about 50 left. Also, if you think you hear cow bells in the video clip, you are not mistaken! One of the big sellers over the weekend were little cowbells with the race logo on it. The kids ring them like crazy when the riders come through.

Seconds after he came through the finish line as the winner of 2012, this biker from Spain was surrounded by the press. I couldn't even get a picture of all the camera crews and reporters after this cause they came out of nowhere and took over the space.

Despite the chaos and overwhelming amount of spandex that invaded the local area, it made for a very exciting, topsy-turvy weekend in my sleepy little town. There were 3,000 registered racers this year, so I don't even have any idea how many more will come next year!