Until the Snow Ends

I had my first experience with Critical Mass on my commute home today. If someone can explain to me how a bunch of cyclists intentionally blocking traffic does anything other than make me more likely to get killed on a commute/training ride some day by an irate driver, I'm all ears. Until then, I will stand by my conclusion that I would rather not have a bunch of assholes on bikes out there giving the rest of us a bad name.

I don't want to bore you with my non bike racing life, but man, it's been a busy week. So busy I completely forgot about a race report for Sunday's race! Which is a bummer since I tried to allude to it in the Baystate report. So anyway, I got my butt kicked at Baystate, so I drank a bunch of water and did the Anna McLoon recovery jog special that night, I figured I'd try anything to get some form back. Sunday morning hits and I still feel like crap, but is it crappier than the average post-race morning? I can't tell. Get in the car! The Palmer course was a pure reversal from Baystate. Narrow doubletrack that was singletrack if the guy in front rode in the middle for 70% of the course. As rooty as any woods trails that's been ridden on for 20 years. Five dismounts per lap, triple barriers, three runups, one of which was obscenely long. I don't actually know what old school jungle cross is like, but I suspect this is it. We lined up with what felt lik...

I had nothing to do with this but, wow, that's pretty intense. Amazing what people will do when they're anonymous.

I took my car in to the shop today. I talked to the guy about what I needed done and then I started taking my bike out of the trunk so I could ride back to Boston. I was expecting to have to explain that 18 miles back to my house isn't really that hard of a ride, even in November, since OMG BIKE TRANSPORTATION is so extreme to most of America. "Do you ride cross?" he says. It is not every day that random people are able to tell that I am on a cyclocross bike, and not some touring road bike with fat tires. Even less often do they know it's called "cross." "Yeah," I said, "...you know cross?" "I used to race when I was a junior," he says. "Seriously?" "I was fourth at nationals in Leicester the day Tim Johnson won." Seriously . Apparently he also went to Worlds at some point (probably that year, although I was too awed to get the details from that) and raced a Superprestige while he was over there. So in a...

Much like Putney this summer, there isn't going to be much of a Sterling race report. Basically, I got up, went to the basement to get my bike, and as I walked up the stairs I was like, "wow, my legs shouldn't burn walking up the stairs carrying a bike." Combine that with some poor fueling decisions in the morning and I was already giving up on the start line. Some sneaky moves got me into the top 20 anyway, from a 6th row start, as people cluster-f'ed around the start track and the first runup. But it didn't really matter, the race got sorted out and I didn't have anything resembling the gas required to hold my spot. I crashed on lap two trying to make up for worthless legs by cornering too aggressively and that was pretty much the end of me fighting. C Todd came cooking by me somewhere along the line, slapped me on the back and said "come on" but I couldn't even pick it up to make a token effort to go with him. I tried to figure out h...

My previous race report mentions "two IF riders" but if you look at the results there is only one IF rider listed. Was I hallucinating that second black and green jersey? Hmm. Perhaps I was. But wait... From the Cambridge Bikes guys : Jon Bruno on IF took a beer feed from us mid race which unfortunately led to a DQ. (those officials are hiding out in the trees) Maybe it was the beer mug socks he was rocking that tipped them off. Funny thing is, I remember coming through with one to go with the IF guys and the offical saying as we rode past, "you two, after the race." Burn. I for one am glad that the scourge of the beer feed was eradicated! We must be ever vigilant against people having fun while racing bikes. Preemptive disclaimer: Yes, I realize that you probably aren't allowed to have open containers in Shedd Park and you aren't allowed handups of any kind. And if the right people complained to the city of Lowell, BRC could lose the venue, blah b...

This ended up being a one race weekend for the first time in a long while, and I even had a free Saturday. It was a transcendental experience. I hung out, watched some WCSN cross, went to a park and learned how to remount. It wasn't really that big a deal it turns out, just have some coffee, lower the seat an inch and go someplace where no one can see your flailings. Anyway, nice to check off one of the easier season goals. I'm not gonna say it's perfect, but I figure doing it consistently in races will eventually get the kinks ironed out, much like how 1.5 seasons of stutter-stepping the remount led to me being really smooth about doing it the wrong way. In exchange for not racing Saturday I decided to ride the 1/2/3 race at Slick Willy. With all the big time riders down at the USGP, this meant my chances of staying on the lead lap were good, and since many of the 3/4 blog-stars weren't in the race I wasn't missing out on throwing down with the Hup/Zanc guys....