Back to Racing

Got a chance to hear Paul give me some more publicity on the P.A. system at the Whaling City Cyclone. Race report?

Okay well we line up, and Bill Dolan gives us the whistle and one of the CL Noonan juniors who just finished racing and barely finished the roll out in time took off from the gun at mach 5, or as Roy-turd points out the faster of the two Cat 4 speeds (27 or so). I think it had to be faster than 27 that first lap but maybe not. It obviously wasn't so fast as to pop me. But it was a shock to the system. Boom. We're racing boys.

Typical bit of line dodging. The kids trying to apex the corner in a pack instead of holding their line. Bunch of guys trying attacks off the front, I won't go into one attack in so much as I might say something I shouldn't. Rolled around at the limit for the first 4 short laps, but then settled down into a nice rhythm. It was fun. It wasn't easy but despite the doubts I held on and finished with the pack. Yes I did tail gun most of the race. I moved up a couple times on the finishing stretch (which is slightly up hill but I wouldn't call it anything close to a hill). Or i should say I jumped around people every time we went up the hill, sometimes passing 1/2 the field for the hell of it (and maybe because they were slowing down).

Erin and L were there watching and in the handful of pictures they got you can see this kid in black and pink just sitting on my wheel the whole time. The whole race.

This kid sits there. And then with 1.5 laps to go he launches gets a 20 meter gap going into the final turn and takes the bell with a decent sized gap and the front of the cat 4 pack is caught with their shorts down. And they hit the line with the bell full gas and I hit the afterburners to stick with the group and pass what seemed to be people popping left and right. I probably didn't need to do that though and didn't have much there after the lolly pop on the backstretch parallel to the start finish road. Came around the corner to see bodies and bikes piled up on the curb and I motored on up to finish 22. There were 35 starters and 27? finishers. And really didn't touch the brakes at all. I like that. The whole Cat 4 road racing phenomenon of yelling "Braking" or "Slowing" annoys the hell out of me. Just shut up and pay attention. If you run into the back of someone because they slowed down and you didn't notice? Too bad. Maybe you'll learn to pay attention next time and not rely on someone to yell "slowing" to make you aware that the pack is being retarded.

So yeah with my fervent love of cat 4 road racing styles documented now and my adoration of any sort of race with a killer hill well known, I decided to cave into some peer pressure and go race up in the land of Zanc cycles and Lego Lord on saturday. You know, I thought, why not, a 4 lap 40+ mile hilly road race with a crazy descent in it is perfectly suited to me. Also you know I've just got to make sure I don't get too cocky with all these pack finishes I'm getting. Side note, i'm not feeling like embedding links today. Maybe if i feel like it later. I'm also not feeling like making sure i capitalize everything absolutely perfectly either. What's new eh?

Purgatory here I come. I hope only to descend into purgatory and not any further on Sat morning. Oof. Hopefully Results boy has a Mt Bike race or something to do on Saturday. I suppose I should check the start list to be sure.

So one thing that's been happening is all these people are taking the bike challenge. Use your bike instead of your car and get "prizes" and stuff. And my biggest issue is what if you already use your bike all the time, and second what if your car burns recycled veggie oil? I'm not burning fossil fuels when I drive it. But yesterday I actually did replace a car trip with a bike trip. B double E double R U N. And this morning we left the car parked and my wife rode in with us. Us being my youngest on the trail-a-bike. I had to take the masterpiece seatpost off the giant and spend some time getting it ready to hook up, but man o man is it way easier to pull the trail-a-bike into the city than the trailer.

It was a great ride in. L had a blast on the back there and i could actually feel her helping pedal going up to the india point park bridge. Pretty cool.

Sunday was just a great day. The race left me feeling awesome. It was just flat out fun. Good intensity, pushed me to the limit, i stuck with the pack. Afterwards we headed over to our alma mater and walked around the Arbo. Man that place just feels like home to me. it looks great, names of the plants came back to me almost like i haven't been gone for 16 years.

All told a fantastic day.

I have some pictures but it will be a random roll of the dice to see if I get them up here in a timely fashion or at all for that matter.

Starting what will hopefully be a really cool projects. It is something I've been passionately wanting to do for years and years. I'm too close to the start to really feel like it is actually going to happen but it should be pretty cool.

Hoping to get out to the smack down tomorrow. Speaking of it. Check out Keith Kelly's write up about it. Background information is that Keith was they very last person to ever ride with Mark Nicholson. Nicholson and Dr Flats-a-lot rode back to the Doc's house and then as Nicholson was headed home up the BLVD he ran into Keith and suggested he come out to the smack down ride. I guess they talked about training and other things. Keith showed up at the smack down only to find the person who suggested the ride to him had died.

Keith is apparently a local legend, former (pre-injury) Pro Runner sponsored by Reebok, missed going to the Athens games in the 10k by 3 seconds. He's one of these JONNY BOLD!! types. Dr Flats was trying to ride with him last week and Keith was just chatting away, not breathing hard and Dr Flats looks down and sees 600 watts on the Garmin Edge 500. If he decides to start racing bikes he'll do very well. In the mean time hopefully I can make it on a ride that he's been on. So far all I've heard about this guy is from everyone else. His music selections are all over the map.

Oops. I added a link. All you other's who could be linked are over on the old need to be updated and organized sidebar somewhere.

Do Good out there
heddwch
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