Sunday Racing-Rain, starting in last place, just ride the damn bike, have fun, forget that you can’t really afford this weekend and move the work schedule to go on unmarshalled and free of admission ride on monday. Not being in the city is a relief.
I’m afraid I did too much goofing off on the bike before my race, riding the fun sections of the course, exploring trails, racing around to cheer/taunt Ben around during the Cat. 4 race all cost me the huge powerful move that would have been necessary to make up some places from my last place start in the 91 strong cat 3 field. Traditionally I have shown up to a venue in a frantic dash to register, take a smash, suit up and get the blood flowing in such scant time that I get to the line in a frantic antagonized state that has me tear off like a scorched cat, being at the venue a full 5 hours before my start allowed me enough leisure to fall into a lull. I don’t know if it would have helped that much to have started fresher anyway since trying to put some power down at the at the line had my beat out old tires fishtailing in the building mud. So I slowly realed people in on the course, falling in with a number of riders that I traded inconsequential placings with and finished out in 32nd, well outside of the top 10 I would have needed to get a better start position in any of the big Verge CycleSmart New England Championship series races this year as Budd Bike Work’s frozen credit and tight finances haven’t allowed for race fees to be paid ahead and start positions secured a month in advance. In the old days you just elbowed yourself in to a more desirable place after the top riders were called to the front, now only the most cautious, contientious, and financially secure get the coveted first 5 rows in the start.
Still a good day at the races, Ben’s 4 race had a small field devoid of some of the more appallingly overqualified for a beginner’s race riders allowing him his first top 10 finish in his 3rd race of any kind ever. The venue was beautiful, the terrain around it was a blast (got to get the mountain bike up here next time), and the rain stopped in time for the women’s A race not to be such a sloppy affair as the earlier ones and Mo Bruno-roy floated away from the field. Its hard for me to believe that no entrepeneuering cafe owner saw fit to come out to the catamount family fun center and take some of us silly wet bike racers money for some sandwhiches and coffee but such was the case and empty stomachs and depleted supplies forced our departure before the end of the Men’s elite competition. Its kind of a shame that by the time the top riders of the day take to the course almost everybody has packed it in and gone home, seems like there ought to be an event tailored to allowing and encouraging a broader audience to appreciate what this sport looks like when it is contested by the top athletes. More people end up seeing the cat 3 and 4 races than the pros and probably go home thinking it is always such a plodding and painful looking affair rather than the display of amazing grace, skill, and power it is when the truly talented take the course.
Monday Meandering-Monday’s forecast for warm weather with only late afternoon showers was far more motivating than any soggy race to load up into the car exhausted after a Saturday of work, misplaced distress, and abandoning boston right after the creshendo of its new embrace of bikes with the mayors cup crit (which, by the way, was pretty rad) and head up to my cousins place in Stowe. Going through all the trouble and expense of getting up to the mountains a time of year as great for weather and scenery as late september would have been a complete waste had I spent the entire weekend focused on the 1.5-3miles of ground that someone had deemed a racecourse. So instead of going home after the race Ben & I went back to Stowe, got a bit of an idea of the direction we’d head in the morning and rested up for the riding that would make the trip worth it, and that I’m afraid will make me pine for another trip to Vermont before it gets too cold rather than race. PB&J’s made in the morning from homemade jam would carry us for five hours up and over pavement and dirt road climbs, snowmobile trails, xc ski and mtb trails that were all ours for the exploring. Its amazing how fast the time goes when you are feeling strong and looking for trails to ride up till you can’t turn the overgeared cranks anymore and come screaming back down, coming up one of the climbs we even came across some grazing moose.
Rolling back into town covered in mud and feeling that beatific and spent bliss known only to endurance athletes, yogis, and jazz trumpeters on smack we stopped in to local shop IRIDE where the guy behind the counter instantly understood what we were feeling and what we’d been into on our obviously worked bikes and proceeded to show us where we’d been riding and how much more there was to explore on a topographic map of the area. Than a rainbow came out, honest. Best bike ride ever. Till the next one.
