Big Bikes

Lapsing

Long time since I couldn't muster some kind of Monday post, this past Sunday also marked the first time I put my body and my sanity before bike racing. My coworker and I got back to The Shop from working the Pan Mass Challenge at 10PM on Saturday night, had to unload the van which was full of soggy cardboard boxes full of tubes and spokes and whatnot. When it came time to get in my car and go home, I was patting my pockets going "Where the hell are my keys?" and then "Where the Hell's my car?", I realized that I had left my car over at the gas station next door, thinking that I would be back before they closed to retrieve it. This meant I had to return the truck in the AM...before my race.

My arms and back were shot from pumping up hundreds of tires, while all the while trying to explain that running 120-140Psi in wet conditions surrounded by thousands of inexperienced riders is ill-advised. "Ya, Lance would run 90Psi" convinced a couple of them, the rest were beyond hope. We had to set up in the rain, a deluge, we were soaked from the get go. At one point a guy asked me for a rag, I handed him one, he grimaced and asked "Do you have a dry one". "I'm sorry but my underwear aren't dry, no I do not have any dry rags".

We were out there at the starting point of the ride in Sturbridge until 9:30 Friday night, back up pumping more tires at 4AM, then down at Mass Maritime fixing bikes which had (for some reason) been involved in crashes throughout the day until 9PM. Favorite dude at Mass Maritime "Where are the helmet mirrors?". "Sorry, we don't have any helmet mirrors". "OK, any kind of mirrors". "We don't have any sort of mirrors, we're really just doing essential stuff here; tubes, lube, adjustments, stuff like that". "Huh, mirrors aren't essential? Heh! Heh! Okey Dokey, Okeee...dokeee" as he walked away.

The plan was to race Hodges Dam on Sunday AM. In the past I have always made the bad decision, always chosen to race no matter how little sleep I got, how totally knackered I was, Saturday night I was just too spent and I knew it. I called suddenly disturbingly fast guy Kevin Sweeney to tell him I would not be carpooling to Oxford.

Disturbingly fast guy Kevin Sweeney. Disturbing not because our shop sponsors him and I want good things for him, disturbing due to the fact that we have ended up on opposite sides of the The War at The 24 Hours of Great Glen next weekend and he is suddenly faster than me. So too is his teammate Colin. Me and my GG24 Harry Precourt finished behind both those guys at Mount Snow last weekend. It's going to be interesting, Peter Ostroski (sp?) is on another rival team with fast Umass guy Tom Sampson. Ostroski had a great finish at The Wilderness 101 last Saturday.

I'd love to sit here and babble on in a paranoid manner about our chances at The GG24 but I have to go running so I'm in really good running shape for that Lemans start Saturday.

Oh, and that's Todd Downs ripping it up in Harold Parker last Sunday on his and Miriam's joint birthday ride.