Great course in Rhody. Beautiful weather. Lots of beer. I wish Nats were going to be back in the northeast next year.
After taking the red-eye from San Fran on Friday night and getting in Saturday morning, friend/coach Josef picked me up and we went straight to the park to watch the races. I was beat and my back was killing from a week’s worth of being on my feet and talking with like-minded nerds at the AGU conference, but some beer and pulled pork got me back into shape.
Next morning we set out early to the course. Matt, Judd Walencikowski, Kyle Murphy, Josef, and I got to the park and did a warm up lap. The course was much slicker than what we witnessed the pros race on the day earlier. After the first group raced, the course turned to peanut butter…and made things difficult early on in our race – as can be seen by the pix. By afternoon, it had dried out again, which made the course really fast – but our conditions made it rather comical to start.
I started in the 6th row, which is not bad considering there had to be about 15 rows with 170+ racers. I had a good start and felt pretty good. My back never acted up, but I was feeling the effects of travel. My legs were heavy and lungs chalky by the closing laps. By about middle of the 2nd lap I found myself with the a small lead group of 5. One rider attacked and we all just watched him get a gap. My strategy was to let him go and hopefully he’d get reeled in later. More of a survival strategy as I felt like I was pinned and couldn’t chase him down anyway. Before the next long run up I had moved to the front of the group, was sitting in 2nd, and had gotten a small gap. At the top of the run up my strategy was quickly altered. I had dropped my chain remounting and it jammed between the crank arm and chain ring. I continued to peddle, only making matters worse at it wrapped around on itself. I tried to fix it while staying in the saddle – and then – SLAM! At the last second before impact I saw the telephone pole that would deviate my plans. I had drifted to the edge of the course near the road and like the titanic, ramped head first. Over the bars, but back up quickly, fixed my chain and going. Well, not yet. Seems the impact was hard enough to knock my front tufo clincher off the rim. In a daze of anoxia I couldn’t figure out why my bike no-workie anymore. Finally the screaming fans made sense as they explained to this stunned rider the issue with the tire. Surprisingly, the tufo popped on quickly and I was on my way.
And that’s how it went. I stuffed my head into the pain cave to make up the lost ground, but eventually could only do so much. In fact, I faded in the last 1/4 lap and lost two positions. My fight was gone – I was exhausted more than any other cross race this season and happy to just finish. Nonetheless, it was a great time with racing, spectating, a little boozing, eating, and talking shop. Fun to hang with JoFo, Mike, Tris, Roger, and others.
Maybe Kansas next year.
Evan
I’ll post pix on my blog later
