I’ve been meaning to write, really I have, but, I haven’t. Too much going on, not much time for sitting and hunting and pecking.
I’ve narrowed it down to two things, it has to be one, or a combination of the two that explains how it is that I got dropped at nationals road race; too much lube on my chain and/or a faulty pin job on my number. Either way, both can be attributed to Craig. After all, I am a bike racer, and anything I fail to accomplish on the bike, or any race I don’t win, or any bad thing that happens to me must be due to circumstances beyond my control, or at least, as a result of something external, like this is only my 5th race of the year, and it was the heat, the cold, the meal I ate, the pressure in my tires, the over training and lack of riding I’ve been doing. But alas, none of that applies here; it had to be the liberal application of lube (by Craig)! Yes, I was over T-9-ed, I sprayed too heavily and wiped too little. Don’t let this happen to you. The null hypothesis could be that those guys were freakin’ fast, faster than me even (gasp!). But we don’t talk like that, we’re too proud, we’re bike racers.
As I imagined, the course was spectacular. Fast, tough, technical and full force with lots of former pro’s who can pedal, handle and maneuver their bikes. I was thoroughly impressed with Team Specialized. They were savvy, aggressive and competitive in every category; a fun, talented group of guys to train and race with. Rob Anderson got away in his race with one other, for 5 grueling laps, dropping his fellow escapee with 8 miles to go and stretching his lead out to 25 seconds over a shattered field. The grittiest ride I’ve seen in a while and only to be caught, heart breakingly in the final 150 meters, losing the national title by seconds. Billy Innes showed some amazing talent, bridging up to a pro-powered 5 man break away and racing perfectly into a silver medal. His only downfall was the national title went to a 4 time national champion Paul Martin, who had a slightly bigger engine at the end. Kevin Metcalf, Craig Roemer, Wyatt Weisel, and Dean LeBerge all rode like pros. Kudos to
them.
Louisville is a decent town, fairly well planned and full of history. But as soon as our race was over, we were over it. Boulder was calling our name and our great pal Lucas Euser, as it turned out, was to be awaiting our arrival in Denver, fresh off the plane from a half season of racing in Europe with Slipstream Chipoltle. Turns out he had a rough go when he got clipped by the medical car in a race there, going down and breaking a scapula. He’s on the mend now, and rumor has it there’s a chance he could be spotted at the San Luis Crit on July 20th. But let’s wrap up with some travel tales.
Life on the road is always boring, until it gets unbelievable.
We knew we’d end up in Kansas, we’d hoped for KC, MO, which is like Kansas, just a tad shy. Of course one of the only ways to get there from KY, is through St. Louis. That’s the way we went. We filled the tank again for way under $4, and hit a drizzly, flooded waterfront city just before 5pm. We got some close ups of the Rio Mississippi and the Arch, both were larger than can be imagined. It was also fascinating to see the old riverfront warehouse district, now defunct and abandoned, and think about what it looked like in its heyday. From there, it was rush hour, pre-4th of July, get outta town west on I-70 along with several million others to get to some destination where we’d be sure to be blowing up some fireworks. It was an LA-ish traffic jam. So I slept through it, awakened by the occasional Craig-curse at an obscene mobile gesture. Our dinner stop including a conversation with a hostess that wanted to steer us in the right direction, after all, she had gotten such a great deal, $500 worth of explosives for just $200. Hard earned money up in smoke?
My chauffer was a trooper, blowing through KC, MO and lighting out for Lawrence. We were ready to sleep by then, but the exits for Lawrence (home of KU, I had imagined a happening college town on Massachusetts Ave.) were closed and we couldn’t get off the highway. It was strange. But we figured Topeka is just down the turnpike (toll road, cost us all of $2.15 end to end). West of Topeka, we debated throwing sleeping bags down in a corn field for an 11pm to 6am snooze, but instead we opted for a much stinkier, dirtier, noisier, and completely revolting Motel 6. The non-smoking room smelled of bong water, the carpet was soggy wet with a dripping compressor, the downstairs neighbors were just getting started emptying vodka bottles into themselves – which they had completed by the time we left in the morning – I could tell because they staggered about the lawn with those empty bottles cursing other guests for looking at them, and best of all (not counting the cigarette burns in the linens or the cockroaches on the floor), the car alarms kept going of
f all night which kept me leaping out of bed and imagining $30,000 in bikes/wheels being stolen. I stayed in better kept places for $2 in rural Burma, where squatting over an open hole was the only way to relieve one self. Dog bless the capital of Kansas. From there, we knew we’d make Denver by the afternoon, and couldn’t wait to get the freak outta dodge.
Manhatten seemed like a logical stop for coffee and breakfast on the morning of the 4th. The Kansas St. university town likely caters to lovers of coffee and breakfast, if not a quaint bar and restaurant
. So I thought. I can be wrong sometimes. Turns out getting kids into sports through Jesus is much more their style. The place was dead. It was a holiday, and summer time with school out, but even at its best, that place sucked. We left soon after arriving, and thought the flat lands of Kansas for the next 300 miles would be much more exciting. It was. Tales of riding with the pro-kid, meetings with stellar folk, and being surprisingly impressed with sushi in Denver and pedestrian planning Boulder, forthcoming.
I’ve narrowed it down to two things, it has to be one, or a combination of the two that explains how it is that I got dropped at nationals road race; too much lube on my chain and/or a faulty pin job on my number. Either way, both can be attributed to Craig. After all, I am a bike racer, and anything I fail to accomplish on the bike, or any race I don’t win, or any bad thing that happens to me must be due to circumstances beyond my control, or at least, as a result of something external, like this is only my 5th race of the year, and it was the heat, the cold, the meal I ate, the pressure in my tires, the over training and lack of riding I’ve been doing. But alas, none of that applies here; it had to be the liberal application of lube (by Craig)! Yes, I was over T-9-ed, I sprayed too heavily and wiped too little. Don’t let this happen to you. The null hypothesis could be that those guys were freakin’ fast, faster than me even (gasp!). But we don’t talk like that, we’re too proud, we’re bike racers.
As I imagined, the course was spectacular. Fast, tough, technical and full force with lots of former pro’s who can pedal, handle and maneuver their bikes. I was thoroughly impressed with Team Specialized. They were savvy, aggressive and competitive in every category; a fun, talented group of guys to train and race with. Rob Anderson got away in his race with one other, for 5 grueling laps, dropping his fellow escapee with 8 miles to go and stretching his lead out to 25 seconds over a shattered field. The grittiest ride I’ve seen in a while and only to be caught, heart breakingly in the final 150 meters, losing the national title by seconds. Billy Innes showed some amazing talent, bridging up to a pro-powered 5 man break away and racing perfectly into a silver medal. His only downfall was the national title went to a 4 time national champion Paul Martin, who had a slightly bigger engine at the end. Kevin Metcalf, Craig Roemer, Wyatt Weisel, and Dean LeBerge all rode like pros. Kudos to
them.Louisville is a decent town, fairly well planned and full of history. But as soon as our race was over, we were over it. Boulder was calling our name and our great pal Lucas Euser, as it turned out, was to be awaiting our arrival in Denver, fresh off the plane from a half season of racing in Europe with Slipstream Chipoltle. Turns out he had a rough go when he got clipped by the medical car in a race there, going down and breaking a scapula. He’s on the mend now, and rumor has it there’s a chance he could be spotted at the San Luis Crit on July 20th. But let’s wrap up with some travel tales.
Life on the road is always boring, until it gets unbelievable.
We knew we’d end up in Kansas, we’d hoped for KC, MO, which is like Kansas, just a tad shy. Of course one of the only ways to get there from KY, is through St. Louis. That’s the way we went. We filled the tank again for way under $4, and hit a drizzly, flooded waterfront city just before 5pm. We got some close ups of the Rio Mississippi and the Arch, both were larger than can be imagined. It was also fascinating to see the old riverfront warehouse district, now defunct and abandoned, and think about what it looked like in its heyday. From there, it was rush hour, pre-4th of July, get outta town west on I-70 along with several million others to get to some destination where we’d be sure to be blowing up some fireworks. It was an LA-ish traffic jam. So I slept through it, awakened by the occasional Craig-curse at an obscene mobile gesture. Our dinner stop including a conversation with a hostess that wanted to steer us in the right direction, after all, she had gotten such a great deal, $500 worth of explosives for just $200. Hard earned money up in smoke?
My chauffer was a trooper, blowing through KC, MO and lighting out for Lawrence. We were ready to sleep by then, but the exits for Lawrence (home of KU, I had imagined a happening college town on Massachusetts Ave.) were closed and we couldn’t get off the highway. It was strange. But we figured Topeka is just down the turnpike (toll road, cost us all of $2.15 end to end). West of Topeka, we debated throwing sleeping bags down in a corn field for an 11pm to 6am snooze, but instead we opted for a much stinkier, dirtier, noisier, and completely revolting Motel 6. The non-smoking room smelled of bong water, the carpet was soggy wet with a dripping compressor, the downstairs neighbors were just getting started emptying vodka bottles into themselves – which they had completed by the time we left in the morning – I could tell because they staggered about the lawn with those empty bottles cursing other guests for looking at them, and best of all (not counting the cigarette burns in the linens or the cockroaches on the floor), the car alarms kept going of
f all night which kept me leaping out of bed and imagining $30,000 in bikes/wheels being stolen. I stayed in better kept places for $2 in rural Burma, where squatting over an open hole was the only way to relieve one self. Dog bless the capital of Kansas. From there, we knew we’d make Denver by the afternoon, and couldn’t wait to get the freak outta dodge.Manhatten seemed like a logical stop for coffee and breakfast on the morning of the 4th. The Kansas St. university town likely caters to lovers of coffee and breakfast, if not a quaint bar and restaurant
. So I thought. I can be wrong sometimes. Turns out getting kids into sports through Jesus is much more their style. The place was dead. It was a holiday, and summer time with school out, but even at its best, that place sucked. We left soon after arriving, and thought the flat lands of Kansas for the next 300 miles would be much more exciting. It was. Tales of riding with the pro-kid, meetings with stellar folk, and being surprisingly impressed with sushi in Denver and pedestrian planning Boulder, forthcoming.
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