4th of July Crit's - Davis CA 2007
45 /55 open, 75 riders;
So 4:30 am rise, I travel down with my spiritual advisor, Bagwan GONDA!, who, for some reason has more faith in my abilities than I do. We arrive in the land of the Vivisectionists to do some animal testing of our own.
How do aging halfwits do in extreme heat? The entire Psychology Dept. was also on hand to answer "why"? Jury's out.
The first race for us was the 45/55 with a full field. Team Wheelman's has gotten to the point of looking around during a race to see if you have a team. I knew GONDA! was here, there's Griffo sitting on the hay bails in turn 1, then I saw Albers, and halfway thru Edgar popped into view and then out.
The real teamwork came in an audible form of support - Sirens! Yes, they were there! The angelic sounds of females yelling your name, telling you to GO! Go for it!
Now, at 46, with gray hair, a wife n kid, you reach a point in your life when you pretty much figure you will never hear this sweet sound again - at least not without anger tangled all up in it. Shit! I shot my mouth off an the Wheelmen one upped me - clever,.... they sent "The Team". Not one to lead me out per say, but one all the same to put equal pressure on me for a win, nice job - got me there!
Idiocy
1. Racing your bike in 107 degrees
2. Performing above task with your head split in two.
The last race I did was Burlingame E3's. Negative racing - crashfest.
This race had all the hitters - according to Bagwan GONDA! - should be good - and we rode fast.
The start of a 6 turn course is get to the front! now - you can always drift back if need be. That said, if your racing with a team, you may not want..... oh, oh, never mind, that won't happen.
So we head out and about 3 laps in the VOS guys are going to teach me a lesson. The lesson comes in 10, maybe 12 parts. Each part is the same, however, I get a new teacher each time till we hit the 4th lesson, and then it repeats.
Thank you sir may I have another. To tell you the truth, I have a super hard time remembering the all the little things about races - some of these guys n girls are incredible at the blow by blow - I do remember I stayed at the front the whole race, how hot it was, and marking all the VOS attacks.
Oh and the end! I remember that.
3 to go, ya get that super exciting tension and things speed up and yer just all hauling ass. I'm thinking "can I go and just hold it for 3 laps?" The Sirens are yelling.... no, I better wait.... 2 to go, and their starting to do that bullshit sit-up and slow down n speed up stuff so at 1 1/2 laps it happens again, so I rode up along side the guys who were all looking around at each other and said, lets just drill it to the line and race. At that point I looked back up the rode and a guy had just turned in front of me - all I saw was a yellow bike - I made the turn under him and took off. I don't know why I went or whatever, but I got the gap and rode the last 1.5 laps solo.
When I went I was pissed at the chicken shit racing on the front and all could think was how I'm just throwing the race away and then it became how fun these corners are at speed! I held it to the end and won.
At 5:00 we did the 35+ 3/4 race. A million degrees. Gone were the Sirens and only a hand full of spectators left. 2 guys got away, so a guy from SJBC an I chased them down then Jess from VOS bridged up. We made it around to lap the field but stopped short, forcing GONDA! to do an extra lap - what are "Teammates" for? tee hee hee.... I won the sprint from the group I was in and won the race.
Mmmmmm, Sirens.......
Thanks for the support girls - that really helped!
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