A Hot Short Track
A few hardy souls did brave the heat,
to race in the mud, and the dust to eat.
Off with the single speeders, lookit them go,
Looking for Pereira to shoot the hole.
Then come the old guys, but not without teeth,
they go so fast, I don’t get no relief.
30 seconds later the ladies jump the line,
and three or four catch me and leave me behind.
You thought it was hot in the shade of a tree,
Just wait ’til the end of lap number three.
Covered in mud from my knees to my toes,
The sweat is pouring down my face off my nose.
Thank gawd that’s over, I’m beat and I’m done.
And one more week that I wasn’t quite the last one……
The Tabor Torture
(as written and raced by Jose)
I really have no reason to be complaining. I did only 1 out of the 6 races, we fixies only do 4 laps, and not only did I sign up for the pain but I PAID $$$ for it. What was I thinking? Last night I decided to throw myself in the gauntlet for the last race up on the volcano and even though it was painful, I’m glad I did it. The race itself was brutal; I’m not sure how you roadies can do that kind of stuff for so long; I guess I’ll have to work on that. But as soon as I was able to breathe again and the pain subsided, I was able to enjoy being with some bikey friends and some other friends that I know through ski patrol that I haven’t seen in a little while. Plus, Sue & the kids came up with some beer and pizza so I got to enjoy sipping on some suds and stuff my face with greasy foods, yum!
There was a wicked crash that happened right next to me on the first lap last of the night. It was rather odd because there wasn’t anyone else around us when it happened. There were 4 of us together right off the line, heading up the first hill. As we turned the corner to start the fast-pedaling decent, the first 3 guys got away from me (as I said earlier, I’m not really much of a racer) and then this 5th guy came up from behind (dido). Even though we had the whole road pretty much to ourselves (just the 2 of us) he started veering towards the ditch. He was able to ride the ditch for a moment or two but eventually he lost control and I saw his front wheel turn 90 degrees: I think he was trying to pop back out of the ditch. That jolt of his wheel threw him over the bars and into both the pavement of the ditch and then the grass of the hill. I’m never caught his name or found out if he’s okay, but I surely hope he is.
Each year I some how make up excuses for not getting up to Tabor for the whole series and I usually only race the last 1 or 2 races. Even though I will continue to try to get out to more races as time allows, this year, only racing the last race seemed to pay off. The last race is for double points and since the fixie category is so small, most all racers end up with points. I ended up in 10th place (out of 16) and received 32 points for it! Therefore, I finished the entire Tabor series in 22nd place out of 31: not too shabby for only one race.
Props to Clark Ritchey (sp?) and the OBRA gang for hosting such a great event
Seattle to Portland – In a Day
What did 10,000 cyclist have in common yesterday at 4:30am? they were all massing at the University of Washington to begin the one or two day ride down to Portland.
This is the second year that I’ve done this ride, Earl and I completed it in 2007 under blistering heat and wickedly high humidity; this year was only slightly less painful with lower temps, but at horrendous headwind that kicked up just past the halfway point and carried on until about 10 miles from home.
Even though I’ve been putting in a ton of race and training miles this season, I haven’t been training for kind of mileage that you need for STP in the slightest, in fact up until two Friday’s ago I had no idea that I was even going to ride it, but a last minute cancellation from my uncle who had been training with my brother and good friend left a spot open for me.
Now it should be noted that my brother has never ridden a road bike before 3 months ago and hasn’t really been very active for the past 10 years and our friend Kelly, while fairly active is primarily a go-cart racer so most of his time and energy goes into that. These two have put in some very serious miles, proper diet and more importantly pure suffering in the last few months and both were fit and ready to put the hammer down.
Once we got moving things started to spread out fairly quickly and the three of us settled into a good rythum looking for faster pacelines to jump on the back of, unfortunately, we seemed to be the paceline that was getting jumped and while looking back at one point I could see a long, snaky line of riders that seemed to extend for a quarter of a mile behind us. (funny how everybody want to climb on board, but nobody wants to help!)
We rolled into Centrallia, the halfway point, in just a hair over 5 hours, grabbed food and water and hit the road again; everybody was still looking and feeling good so we kept the momentum going……this is where things got ugly. Shortly after leaving Centrallia Kelly started to feel off, but he kept riding; then he started burping…but he kept riding, the burbs quickly turned to vurps(combination burp and little bits of regergitated whatever)…..but he kept riding….the vurps then made the natural progression to full on vomit….but still, Kelly kept turning the pedals. For the next two hours Kelly recceeded deep into the darkest corners of his personal pain cave alternating between sheer misery and feeble attempts to keep any food or liquid down….all while still pedaling. This was absolutley one of the most inspiring and disgusting amazing feats I’ve witnessed on a bike, this guys is a champ and certainly deserves the “Super Tough Guy” award.
My brother rode flawlessly, his hours in the saddle and STP specific training really showed for him; he rode smoothly, took good long pulls at the front and barely treated this organized ride like a race that he was hell bent on winning, although he did have one lapse of judgment at the very end on a short little hill that he thought he would power away from me on (along with a smart aleck comment as he went by) so I of course had to shut him down to remind him that he’s not all that and the bag of chips he thought he was.
STP is a super well run and organized event, after 30 years of practice I guess I wouldn’t expect it any other way; a huge thank you to all the event staff, volunteers, Gold Wing association for the constant support and motorcyle escort and anybody else who might have had a hand in making this event happen. Job well done!
Solidarity
Cancer is an evil, evil beast that needs to be destroyed.
Fight hard Kira, all of us at Vista Ridge Velo are rooting for your quick and speedy recovery
Tabor – Round 2
Last night was the 4th race in the Mt Tabor series, my second, and it proved to be another whopper of a race; not because I was at the front battling it out for the win, but because the heat, wind and getting dropped at right about the half way point made for another inwardly painful series of laps that once again had me questioning my sanity.
In spite of all that I guess I really like the kind of punishment that this series dishes out, the crowds are always great, the races go off nearly on time and the action is always heated right from the start; all of that adds up to some seriously good times…….and this week I moved up a few more spots too.