Downeast Cyclocross Weekend, race report.

Day one.

It happened. It was muddy. There are few pictures. None of me. I won't bore you with paragraphs of text with no pictures. I know you, Internet, you have a short attention span. You like pictures. Greg had a great ride. Wheels wrecked it something fierce. I felt horrible before, during, and after; but I finished. I was under-dressed, and under-motivated. My gearing was retarded. When it was over, I was a bitchy, miserable mess. Enough said.

Post Race.

my frozen hands were useless. The buckles on my shoes were packed with mud, and it took the efforts of many to get them off. I threw all my muddle clothing in a plastic bag, got in the car and cranked the heat. The heat would stay cranked. Two hours later, my rolling oven was about 140 degrees and everything was dry and brittle, including my face. It's cool though, I had chapstick.

I spent about about an hour cleaning, tuning and lubing my ride. Then I spent an hour hosing off and laundering my clothes and body. Went to bed early, and couldn't get to sleep even though I was completely exhausted. Don't you hate that?

SUNDAYSUNDAYSUNDAY!!!

Woke up, hopped on the trainer. Spun out the stiffness, did some stretching, then hit the kitchen.

i find when you're drinking a half dozen servings of espresso, it's best to make them two at a time.

Feasted on a pile of high protein gruel, packed up the car and hit the road. I knew the races on Sunday started earlier, and I took a guess at how much earlier. I was wrong, I showed up almost 4 hours before go time. I got sunburn. I'm cool with all these things.

Sunday was just as muddy as Saturday, but it was a beautiful, bluebird day. Problem was, the mud was drying, and turning from chocolate milk to peanut butter. You can ride through chocolate milk, peanut butter will destroy you. The promoter had mercy on the elite fields and moved the course tape a bit to expose some soggy grass, and provide a detour around the super-slow mostly unrideable mud pits.

muddy fried chicken legs. there's 11 secret herbs and spices mixed in there.

It was a pretty brutal race. As usual, my goal was to beat Colin. Colin was talking big game about taking a DNS before the race. Combine this with his DNF from Saturday and I figured it would be a race of attrition. I get out there, put in a few good laps, then coast into victory. Problem is, Colin is crafty, it was all psychological warfare. I found this out the hard way. I would pass people, people would pass me, but every time I looked back, he was there. With all the mechanical and DNFs he's been having lately, I forgot that he's really fast on a cyclocross bike. Having about 4 pit bikes, and 28 people helping him in the pits certainly didn't hurt either.

dear colin, GOOO! AWAAAAY! kisses, gorilla

After about 40 minutes, my bike was not shifting, braking, or rolling. Certain parts of the course had much tackier mud that others. These parts gummed up my fork and stays with so much mud, I could hardly push it. My plan was to aim for the center of all the puddles to try and loosen things up. Rinse the peanut butter off with chocolate milk.

In Summary

this is what a well-earned beer looks like, here's to me.

22nd BITCHES! 4 verge points! $19 dollars!

I can't tell you how excited I was about this. However, my excitement was somewhat dulled by waiting in line behind Brian Wilichoski as he picked up is significantly (!) larger check for 11 place in his elite debut. He's fast.