Cycling Classic: Hot race, cooler streetscapes

For more than 250 competitors from around the globe, the brutal uphill climb to the finish line of Sunday's Philadelphia International Cycling Classic along Manayunk's Levering Street remained, quite simply, the Wall.

But for four not-as-ambitious friends who live along the steep incline, Levering Street meant something else on a postcard-perfect late spring morning. The Sofa.

Squeezing their large gray couch out of their narrow rowhouse and onto the sidewalk was their athletic event of the day. Now, they drank from plastic cups as the racers - their names and their position in the field a mystery to them - whizzed by.

"I think everyone's jealous of us," said a male couch Olympian, before complying with his friend's order to cut the interview short and not give their names. "Why stand when you can sit? I think we've got the best set-up."

Indeed, the bike classic, a tradition for decades in Manayunk and the adjoining neighborhoods of East Falls and Roxborough that line its roughly 12-mile course, has long been two events: The heat of the race, which attracts some of the planet's best cyclists, and decidedly cooler street scenes.

Sofa drinking notwithstanding, the rowdy behavior that marked past race days in Manayunk has been greatly muted: thanks, no doubt, not only to a highly visible police presence but also special liquor-control agents making the rounds.

On a mellow morning of royal-blue sky and perfect 70-something temperatures, it didn't look like the agents would be too busy. Many in the scattered crowd along the course in Manayunk were families enjoying the sunshine, intermingled with quite a few amateur cyclists who marked the occasion by pedaling their way into the neighborhood.

Greg Ochsner, 52, a radiation oncologist from Chester Springs, Chester County, bicycled with two friends along the quite level Schuylkill River Trail from Conshohocken. But Ochsner still felt the pain of the competitors as he watched them struggling up steep Levering Street.

"We've done the Wall a couple of times," he said. "It's OK when you do it once, but these guys are doing it God-knows-how-many times."

"I don't know how they do it at that speed," marveled Andrew Pedlow, 59, of Wayne, who stopped during his usual Sunday bike outing along the river from King of Prussia to the Philadelphia Museum of Art and back. He was taking home a souvenir - a full water bottle tossed off by one of the riders.

But none of the other Sunday cyclists had a get-up quite like Victor and Gail Barsky of Haverford Township, Delaware County, who came via Narberth on their tandem bicycle. The couple, who met in a cycling club, bought it 22 years ago. They've had their bicycle-built-for-two remodeled and rebuilt several times and now get up at 6 a.m. every day to ride for an hour.

"It's fun," said Gail Barsky, 65.

"It equalizes the power of both people," said Victor Barsky, 70, a pet-food manufacturer. "You stay together and you can talk. When it's windy, it's more efficient, because you're drafting off each other."

Perhaps, but nothing looked more efficient Sunday than the set-up for Danielle Palencar, 28, an art director at Urban Outfitters from South Philadelphia, and 31-year-old insurance worker Jon Hand of Manayunk. They were sitting at a café table at Coopers Brick Oven with a front-row view of Main Street, eating pizza, olives, and chips, and sipping sangria and a cocktail as the racers huffed and puffed past.

"We're not huge fans, but we like watching it," Palencar said, "and we have the best seats."