Canton Cup

Why didn't you race Canton?

Let's start from the beginning. Downeast? In Maine? Remember? With all the mud? Yeah, that. Gave my bike a good scrubbin' after that weekend. Rode 'er into the office the following day to see how she was running. Like most of the bike commuters around me, there was all sorts of grinding and squeaking coming from my drivetrain. A quiet bike is a fast bike. My bike was not quiet.

thom came dressed as a kid toucher.

So I ripped 'er apart. Took the whole bottom bracket apart. It's BB30, so the process was way more involved than the last time you took a look inside your bottom bracket. I had the special, overpriced, Cannondale tools, printed instructions from Cannondale's website, and a whole tub of grease. An hour later, I had very dirty set of directions, half a tub of grease, and one bolt left to tighten. I was quite proud of myself, until I heard the crunching sound that last bolt made.

So close.

my friend, functional crank arm bolt, and his evil twin

Aluminum fasteners. Why? So one thing lead to another, and my crank arm fell of as I soft pedaled through the parking lot at Canton. No race for me. I had a stash of beer, and I hadn't registered yet; two factors that made it easy to turn down the 15 bikes that were offered to me. Another Canton Cup, in the books.

Dear Cat3 Men,

I started typing a comment to respond to Mike's response to my open letter to Cat3s, and it started to get really long, so I decided to turn it into a post here at the show. I should preface this by saying I consider it too late in the season to justify the $90 UCI license that an upgrade would require, so I don't expect any more Cat3s to upgrade this year.

thom get's into character by scoping out all the boys. (wanna see my van?)

That said, my main argument for the top of the Cat3 field to upgrade is the Closed Cat3 field with 126 dudes, and the Elite field with 55 dudes. Canton, and the results of my fellow upgraders, showed that the top of the Cat3 field can hang with the elite field. I think the top 20ish Cat3 dudes could easily move into the elite field without the earth crashing into the sun. Equalizing field sizes was probably the intention of moving the Cat2s out of the B race. This move has been successful, but I feel it should be pushed even further.

Sure, the new elites will probably get lapped, but it won't be until after you've raced for 40 minutes, which seems to be the average length of the Cat3 races. The 20ish vacant Cat3 spots will be filled, which helps the sport grow, and the elite field will get bigger, which helps the sport grow.

after the race, thom, his van, and ryan kelly were nowhere to be found

Alright monkeys, start your poo-flinging.