...with more crappy weather!
My first ride of March was a tough one. Tough to get started, tough to stay out in and tough to recover from. I have never done a road ride in worse conditions. I experienced all forms of precipitation in the two hours I was out...rain, sleet and snow, all at a balmy 34 degrees. Epic conditions and I actually enjoyed it on some level.
A week ago I did the final race in the local cyclocross series. The finale was held at the Worlds Fair park. It was an awesome mix of concrete, off camber grass sections, stairs and tight corners which seemed like it was designed just for me. The slick tires (I wasn't spending $100.00 for cross tires) held me back in the mud, but not enough to matter and it made it more fun sliding around the course.
The morning of the race I decided my fitness needed more than a thirty minute race for a workout and riding to and from the race would be a great way to add some miles. The plan was to have a gentle spin (10 miles away?) to the race site as a nice warm up, but fate had other plans.
This is where your chain belongs...
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...not here.
My gentle spin to the park was interrupted by "click...click...click...POW". The sound of my chain breaking. I picked the chain up and rode my bike skate board style for a mile or so before coming to the realization that this would put me at the park a few hours after the race. I called my good buddy Bob Davies (all around good guy and team mate for racing this year) who interrupted heading out to lunch with his wife to come rescue me with a master link and chain tool. Big thanks, Bob. All this put me behind, so my gentle warm up turned into a leg searing sprint to make sure I didn't miss registration.
Turns out the sprint wasn't needed as, like most races, it went off a bit late and I had plenty of time to register, chill out and catch up with some peeps I had not seen lately. I caught lots of flak with questions like "are you riding that?", "did you bring some other tires" and just general "you're doing it wrong". Good times.
The single speed class went off 30 seconds before the Cat 4's, so I had a great motivator to pedal hard and keep the real racers at bay. It lasted for a couple laps before the fast guys laid it on me, but I was happy to be able to stay away from most of the field.
Ended up third and only 20 seconds back of second place in the singlespeed class and my time would have put me in seventh in the much larger (and more competitive) Cat 4's. Overall pretty happy with the results considering most of these guys are "real" racers that put in some serious miles.
Turns out the sprint wasn't needed as, like most races, it went off a bit late and I had plenty of time to register, chill out and catch up with some peeps I had not seen lately. I caught lots of flak with questions like "are you riding that?", "did you bring some other tires" and just general "you're doing it wrong". Good times.
The single speed class went off 30 seconds before the Cat 4's, so I had a great motivator to pedal hard and keep the real racers at bay. It lasted for a couple laps before the fast guys laid it on me, but I was happy to be able to stay away from most of the field.
Ended up third and only 20 seconds back of second place in the singlespeed class and my time would have put me in seventh in the much larger (and more competitive) Cat 4's. Overall pretty happy with the results considering most of these guys are "real" racers that put in some serious miles.
A couple pics from the race featuring my new super stylin' Bike Zoo jersey.
Photo credit to this guy, Endurance Dave.
A huge head wind and very tired legs made for a brutal ride home. Brutal.
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