The original plan had been to race, the original plan didn’t include me running out of gas in the giant staircase I was driving through a deluge on saturday and shelling out for a proper half tank to get me home. The vehicle is a study in an-aerodynamics, basically a reversed sail that tops out the speedometer of a 6 liter engined vehicle at 65, hustling to make up for time lost to the weather had me burning about a gallon/mile, nice. That left me with about $16 dollars in the bank account, not enough to get a new annual license and race registration for a guy with frozen credit.
This was probably for the best, I rode out to the course and did as much riding as I could on it as a non-registered to race rider and I am not sure that I’d have survived a full 9lap, 1 hour onslought like that right now. Ripping around the turns and goofing off was better for me to remember that it is worth it to work hard to be good at this than entering the 1-2-3 race and getting shelled. Apparantly I was the only guy to take the uphill barrier via sloppy wheely to crank roll rather than running so I didn’t finish my non racing race day completely devoid of accomplishment. It’s going to be no BS to ride at the level of the field I’ll need to compete in this year, rule changes have forced me out of the familiar B race that I’d known since my first season of cross in ’02, about time I guess but I am going to need to de-tox and get my ass in gear to make a showing out there, some of these guys I’ll be racing look like centaurs.
I didn’t get out to the venue early enough to witness the exploits of Budd Bike Works Beta production test rider B. Gurley in the 3/4 race. I am really proud of him jumping into it with both feet and making it count in his first race ever & not turning tail as would have been well understood when he found the beginner race filled up. He rode out to the course from the medford funeral home, raced in a field stacked with tuned up talent, crashed & bashed up his rear brake a bit, pitted and failed to fix it so rode the bike with only a frontbrake for the remainder with only one additional crash resultant from it and was only lapped by the dude on Tim Johnson’s team that had demolished the rest of the field by a full minute. NICE WORK BUDDY!. If you were there watching today you couldn’t have missed his bike cause it looks like the Lucky Charms Leprechaun threw up on it. The Midnight Blue Budd Cross frame has a red rear wheel, green tires, and pink handlebar tape. I want to find him a yellow saddle to complete the nightmare. I am pretty sure if anyone had told the guy to let some air out of the tires before the start he probably wouldn’t have laid the thing down on a turn in the first place. He was running 70lbs in em, silly cracker-now you’ve got no brand caps on your shifters.
If anyones got any pics from the day I’d like to see them to maybe throw in with the text here.
I guess it should be noted that the Pro Mens and Womens races at Bedford I watched were won by Adam Hodges Myerson and Mo Bruno Roy respectively and both by large margins with impressive solo efforts. One thing about the true pros is that they’ll push as hard as an average schlub like myself when I am maxed out for the entirety of the race.
