Fun on Two Wheels
This past weekend was a blast I have to say, but it wasn't always that way. I left EC Saturday with the Bros as well as Matt and Jez and stayed in a crapped hotel room in Green Bay 0nly to wake up Sunday morning with rain. Reluctantly we all loaded the Blazier up and headed over to the adjacent Denny's for some b-fast. Crazy busy there, ended up in smoking section (good one liner: having a smoking section in a restaurant is like having a peeing section in a pool), moved to a fridged non-smoking section, tons of food, and we're off. We arrive at the venue, which they made a mockery of but did eliminate the road race aspect of the previous staging area, to find that the rain that was previously soaking us from our car to restaurant walk now was down graded to a mist. We rolled over to registration. As I was sitting there signing here dating there, I looked up from the park bench where I was seated only to see mud-clad racers running/riding/cursing their bikes as they made their way across the road section. I looked back down at the half-written out check, then back up at the struggling sport racers...a decision had to be made. To race or not to race--that's not really a question. I didn't freeze my ass of all winter, give up drinking and ice cream, or drive 5 hours just to be a spectator. Sign name grab some extra Clif Shots.
Knowing what I know of meteorological trends I called that it was going to get really tacky out there and was going out on a limb to say that it was going to be good while warming up. Partly b/c it had altogether stopped raining and it was hot, but mostly cause i needed some motivation.
The race started out slammin' into some crazy burmed atv trail and I was sittin' pretty third wheel. I was really kind of amazed at how I felt right from the start and I tried to assure myself that I would blow it. I didn't blow it, surprisingly, but I did make a couple mistakes that will forever be engrained in my mind as mistakes to learn from. Through out the race I seemed to be on my own for a lot of it, but at one point I did pass Phil, a guy I was gunning for. He hopped on and we exchanged pleasantries while making our way through a grassy section and down an off camber section. We started climbing the rocky hill and I saw that there were three elite women on the climb. I knew that after the climb was a single track section at the bottom of the following hill, so passing might be a good idea (I say now). Phil's behind me pulls past and says "lets get past them," and lays it down trying to close the gap. I lagged on the response thinking it wouldn't happen, or it won't make a difference, or maybe just owwie, but whatever caused me to hesitate was my undoing. Phil, never to be seen again, passed all three of them and I only picked off one and got bottlenecked behind as we entered the single track. Hindsight being 20/20 I totally didn't understand how dire of a situation that one move was and that it meant the difference in maybe a couple more spots. Outside of the subsequent power outage during the chase to Phil I finished out with a satisfying 3rd in my age and 8th overall. A good race overall, the course-perfect like I expected, the competition-mostly there, and the moments-priceless. I even managed a smile during the race, which normally doesn't happen often...
Enough with the pics. Thanks a ton to Chad and Ron K. for driving. We'll see ya'll at 12 hours at the Park baby!!
Knowing what I know of meteorological trends I called that it was going to get really tacky out there and was going out on a limb to say that it was going to be good while warming up. Partly b/c it had altogether stopped raining and it was hot, but mostly cause i needed some motivation.
The race started out slammin' into some crazy burmed atv trail and I was sittin' pretty third wheel. I was really kind of amazed at how I felt right from the start and I tried to assure myself that I would blow it. I didn't blow it, surprisingly, but I did make a couple mistakes that will forever be engrained in my mind as mistakes to learn from. Through out the race I seemed to be on my own for a lot of it, but at one point I did pass Phil, a guy I was gunning for. He hopped on and we exchanged pleasantries while making our way through a grassy section and down an off camber section. We started climbing the rocky hill and I saw that there were three elite women on the climb. I knew that after the climb was a single track section at the bottom of the following hill, so passing might be a good idea (I say now). Phil's behind me pulls past and says "lets get past them," and lays it down trying to close the gap. I lagged on the response thinking it wouldn't happen, or it won't make a difference, or maybe just owwie, but whatever caused me to hesitate was my undoing. Phil, never to be seen again, passed all three of them and I only picked off one and got bottlenecked behind as we entered the single track. Hindsight being 20/20 I totally didn't understand how dire of a situation that one move was and that it meant the difference in maybe a couple more spots. Outside of the subsequent power outage during the chase to Phil I finished out with a satisfying 3rd in my age and 8th overall. A good race overall, the course-perfect like I expected, the competition-mostly there, and the moments-priceless. I even managed a smile during the race, which normally doesn't happen often...
This being an afterthought as I look at my pics, Jez really was enamored with the showing of BFTs--Got Parking Stall?...
The clouds this weekend were pretty picturesque...
Enough with the pics. Thanks a ton to Chad and Ron K. for driving. We'll see ya'll at 12 hours at the Park baby!!
posted by John at 11:01 PM
0 Comments:
Post a Comment
<< Home