On Crashing

A note: July is the month of the tour. Or, Le Tour, if you're French. It is a month of increased interest in cycling, and I am no different. My resurgent interest in riding my bike didn't come because of Le Tour, but because of a some major life changes. When I started writing this, I didn't look at the last post I put up here, but I'm pretty sure that it was before my life made some pretty big changes, and those changes turned out to be temporary. I can now focus on doing the things I want to do, and I am happy about that. And no, I didn't get married and/or divorced; I was engaged in something that required a similar level of dedication though.

Anyway, on to what I actually want to write about. Pretend like you just started reading here .....


Huh. 

That's what I thought when I went ass-over-teakettle on Wednesday. The rider in front of me managed the sandy, dropping section pretty well. I figured I could ride it as well because "Anything you can do ..." Turns out that I'm not as good a rider as the guy that was in front of me.

I stuffed the the front wheel of my Jamis into the sand, and over I went. I landed in a slow-motion awkward sort of way in the soft sand, and immediately looked around to see if anyone was witness to my acrobatics. Plenty were. No problem, though; it's not the first time, and it won't be the last.

Huh. The front tire is low. Oh, the front is going flat. Oh, the front is totally flat. I'm crashing. Roll, roll, roll!!!!!

That's what I thought when I crashed yesterday. The jury is still out as to whether I've done permanent damage, but I know that my body hurts. A lot. Specifically, my right knee is really not doing well, which is unfortunate because just a few weeks ago I cut it up pretty good in a similar yet less-rolly manner.

I've crashed on a mountain bike more times that I care to count, and on a BMX far more than that. I've twisted, sprained, bruised, cut, concussed, and broken rather a lot of different parts. That probably explains why I'm not yet 30 years old, and I sometimes have trouble getting out of bed. It also explains why my past is way cooler than yours.

The long-and-short of it, however, is that I've learned how to crash with some sort of grace. I pride myself on my ability to crash. I know it's not something to be proud of, but I certainly am. That's why yesterday hit so hard (Pun intended.)

Today, my whole body hurts. The muscles on both sides of my neck are sore from the immediate need for them to steady my head as it was thrashed about by the ground. My shoulders both hurt from impact, and my abs are sore from trying to keep my innards together. My chest, lats, and back are even sore. These are the muscles that are sore, and not the joints, mind you. These pains are from my body trying to hold itself together under a traumatic event.

For every crash I've ever been in, and for every bit of practice, it seems that sometimes the biking gods will show you who's the bitch.

Yesterday, I was the bitch. Fortunately, that gives me time to get caught up on other things before I get back on the bike in a day or two. Like writing this blog. maybe I'll make it a habit again. 

I went to a bike race and a football game broke out ...

Greenbelt, 7/28

First of all, I forgot to bring a jersey. It was laying on my pillow, ready to be packed in the gear bag when time got really crunched and I had to go. So I did the race in a T-shirt that's about 6 years old and has a skate brand on the front. Fortunately, it was a "slim fit" and a lightweight material. We pinned it tighter in the back, and put the number on. By the end of the race I'm sure it looked disgusting soaked in sweat, but it was surprisingly comfortable.

The race went for about 6 laps without notice. Somewhere around the 6th or 7th lap, there was a guy that thought I cut him off when I was going for a line. He was coming up my outside and I was preparing to take the corner, but I didn't see him. So he yelled something like "Don't do that!" give or take. So, on account of how it wasn't something worth being all riled up about, I made sure to show him with my hands where I was going. I pointed to the outside of the road and motioned that I would be riding my bicycle up that portion of tarmac. Then, as we approached the corner, I used my hands to make a sweeping gesture around the corner, to indicate the line I would take, which would have me going from the outside of the corner, through the apex, and then outside again.

For some reason, he felt like I was being a smart-ass. Which I was. Then he took it personally. Which I didn't intend in the first place, but this dude had been yelling and acting immature for the laps leading up to this, so it wasn't exactly a surprise. So he came up next to me and said a bunch of stuff that I didn't really hear because we were on a descent and I've been close to a 5" gun going off on a Destroyer. What I did get, however, was that he was going to "Ruin this kid's race" and "If he tries to go off the front again, I'm gonna stick on his wheel" and "I'm going to make his race horrible." Which all was weird because he was talking to me, but possibly about an imaginary third person? Or maybe about me? I hate it when people talk about themselves in the third person, and it's just confusing when they talk about me in the ... third? fourth? I don't know which person that was.

After a while, I realized he was, indeed, talking about me. Apparently I'm a kid now. There were multiple times that he was talking trash and saying that he didn't care about winning provided he could ruin my race, and that if I tried to go off the front, he was going to stick on my wheel, and if Mojo went off the front, he would stick on his wheel. Later, some would refer to him as 'Chatty Cathy.' So I went off the front a few times just to sit up and wait for the pack. I may or may not have been playing into his little game. I also tried to figure out what was going on a lot. I just didn't get why he was so angry with me.

So Mojo and I did our turns at the front, tried to keep the pace high (It was later grumbled that the pace was higher this week than normal [we high-fived upon hearing that,]) and did what we normally do in a race. On the last lap the pace was about where it had been, and I knew that 'Chatty Cathy' was going to be on my wheel no matter what, so I tried to get behind him but that didn't work so we ended up next to each other. I tried to keep as far left as possible to let the right side open up, but someone else pulled in there and decided to play the waiting game. We were 3-4 abreast and I was starting to wonder if this would be a good time to put my trackstand skillllz to the test when someone went up the left side. The guy that went up the left had a serious kick, and I tried to catch on, but partly didn't have it, and partly thought he went too early. I downshifted something like 4 times in the sprint because we had started out so slow, and I'll be damned if I didn't finish third. The results have me as 4th so I must have missed someone on my side, but that's all good.

I'm not sure where 'Chatty Cathy' ended up, but if his main goal was to ruin my race, he sure failed. I was really happy with my finishing place, even more happy to hear that we had set the pace higher than normal, and of course I was riding my bike and not putting up baseboards, so that was another win.

After the race, it was reported that Mojo had taken his hands off the bars and pushed someone off the road. I was accosted as I turned in our race numbers by 'Chatty Cathy' who took a few steps toward me as he was trying to yell at his teammate that it was my team and some sort of other craziness. After everything he said during the race, I tuned out when he came toward me and focused on body language. I don't know what his deal was, but I'd be fine with never seeing him again.

When we talked to the officials, it was brought to light that the guy that was so brutally pushed off course by the mighty hand of Mojo wasn't actually the one that complained. In fact, the guy that was forced off course was understanding inasmuch as he realized that racing bicycles is an imperfect thing to be a part of, and gave the inexperienced rider a good lesson in how to conduct himself during a sprint. Knowing Mojo like I do, there's no way he would take his hands off the bars for anything other than to grab a frosty beverage, and he is self-aware enough to not run someone off the road unless it's the absolute last possibility.

In the end, I couldn't help but feel like we had just finished playing a football game. A lot of people talking with their mouths and not their legs combined with ungodly levels of testosterone and anger led to a lack of etiquette that I've never seen, much less been a part of, in cycling. I promote this sport to my friends and family as being the quintessential opposite of those things, but apparently it isn't always that way. I'll be back to the series next week but regardless of what happens or what is said, I'll do the talking with my legs.

And I'll remember to bring a jersey.

Hagerstown Criterium of Championships

So, you wanna just skip to the end? We can just cut this whole damn thing right here with three letters. DNS. Anyway, carrying on ...

Everything went wonderfully on the way up to the venue. I had everything laid out in a much more orderly manner than I typically do, and my morning went well. I even got to watch a very boring stage of the Tour.

I got to the race, signed in, got the number pinned, and started warming up. The warm-up went really well, I got the right amount of big efforts, the right amount of spinning, and the right amount of cruising. Everything was going great. 15 minutes before the start, I took a lap of the course and then stopped by the porta-john to make sure I was as light on liquids as possible.

As I got on my bike and went around the first turn, I stood up to get some speed, and crack! My bars went completely limp in my hands. Just like ...

You can figure it out. I thought that the bolts had been loose or come loose, but after I got off and looked closely, I realized that the faceplate of my stem had broke. I figured I was hosed, but I went to the car and got a 4mm allen wrench, and started asking people if they were going to stick around, and if I could borrow their faceplate.

I had no luck whatsoever, and became a spectator. My teammate came in top-10 which was good, but I'd bet that if there were 2 of us, at least one would have been top-5.

This is the part where I give you my opinion that's not related to racing.

The modern bike industry is really pushing its luck. I bought this stem a couple years ago before the Shimano PRO stuff had landed in the U.S. and I paid a pretty penny for it. It was the only 130mm stem I could find, though, and I kind of had to.

The reason the stem broke wasn't because I was using it in an improper manner, and it wasn't because of something ridiculous like over-tightening the bolts. The only way that would work would be if I had tightened them so much that I had flattened material outside of the milled/molded counter-bore. And I've never installed my bars while I was giant, green, and pissed off so I don't think that's possible.

The reason it broke was because Shimano was trying to make the lightest stem they possibly could. I've known the thing is flexy and bendy at all the wrong times, but I didn't expect that it was made with so little aluminum that it would just plain break. Something about that seems utterly wrong. Of course, it's not brand-new, but then neither are a lot of my other components that are on my bike. This, in my opinion, is a bit like the Madone Headtubes that keep breaking.

And what will Trek's fix for the problem be? They'll add more material to the carbon fiber layup. That's it. Just put material where it should have been in the first place. Instead of making the product as light as possible while still being strong and reliable, we're seeing the big bike manufacturers battle each other for lightness at the expense of making a worthwhile product.

Looks like I've got all the excuse I need to buy that 3T stem I've been eyeing. Unless someone wants to give me $300ish to buy another Shimano PRO stem. Have you seen the one Cav rides? Apparently they hook up their best riders with something worthwhile, and then put a 5000% markup on it.

Crystal Cup

There are some races that I don't really like. Then, there are some races that I absolutely love. I still haven't figured out what the exact formula is for the races I really like going to, but I am slowly starting to piece together the things that will make me really dislike a race.

I've come to the conclusion that when you're at work (the kind that pays the bills -- that you don't really work at, but where everyone thinks they're doing something) it's not the work you do, but the people you're around that make all the difference. Bike racing is the same way. I really like to look around at the start line and see familiar faces. Guys I know take a good line, keep their mouths shut, and do the work that needs to be done.

Now sure, some of these new faces are absolutely wonderful bike handlers, are strong in the pack, and take solid pulls. Then again, some aren't.

It seemed like there were a lot of the latter out there at Crystal Cup. And when you're working with people that you'd rather not be so close to in a corner and the work sucks ... Well ...

I guess it all comes down to safety pins. It bugs the hell out of me when a promoter buys the big box of "Variety" safety pins. If you're not one of the first to get there, you're stuck with either insanely small or cartoonishly large pins.

So the pins bent and because useless when I put my fat ass into my size Large jersey. Then I asked a guy for help that was parked fairly close to me. I say fairly close because we weren't all parked in a parking lot like normal. Instead, we were parked all over Crystal City. Some of us managed to find parking fairly close, but knew damn well we may have to pay an extra "entry fee" that would be stuck under out windshield wiper. I asked the guy that helped me pin my number back on how the course was. He pointed down to a now-tireless Zipp 404 with a crack straight across it. Sooo ... Great.

There was pretty much nowhere great to warm up, so a lot of us ended up battling with city traffic and trying to pretend we weren't warming up with sprint intervals. But we got to the line on time, and had enough time to watch like 6 laps of the Women's race before we could get going.

Most of us having no prior knowledge of the course, we just lined up. No sighting lap, no idle chit-chat, just straight to the line and punch that damn clock.

Once the clock was punched (in the form of an air horn) I'm pretty sure the guys on the front row attacked as soon as they had clipped in. Which is cool. That's racing, and sometimes it can be a lot of fun to go super hard right off the bat.

Did I mention many of us didn't know anything about the course?

Let me enlighten you about the course. There were 7 turns, a long straight, and a tiny bit of elevation change. But only just. Of the 7 corners, 4 were off-camber. A couple had manhole covers in a key point (like the apex), and one was a 180-degree fairly tight corner with a big divot right at the first quarter of the turn, gravel, poor quality in general, and off-camber. On the straight parts there were manhole covers, potholes, and manhole covers encircled by potholes.

The first crash was a simple bunching-up that turned into wheels touching down the straight toward the start/finish. I think only a couple guys went down, but they looked like they went down pretty hard. I know because I was really starting to feel like hell and with every hard acceleration I was loosing a place or two. So the crash kind of happened right next to me. And I had to catch on. Which I hate doing.

Then we rode around in circles some more, my teeth nearly cracked, and the pucker-factor was through the roof. On the last lap we came around the 2nd turn (Which was off-camber, had a pothole, and featured steel manhole covers) and a bunch of guys all decided they wanted to be in exactly the same spot. As the Japanese have known for years, the only way to get more out of a piece of real-estate is to pile things vertically. Which about 8-10 guys did very well. I thought I could get around on the left side, but so did 3 other guys. And they crashed into one another. So I did what any really tired racer does: I unclipped and pretended that I could be of some assistance so I didn't feel quite like I had outright quit. I mean, I could have just come around and finished DFL, or I could try my hand at geometry with a shift lever/spoke problem.

There are a lot of races that I walk away from really not feeling good about, and saying I'll never come back, but a bit of me knows I'll be back next year. This, my friends, was not one of those races. For the pro guys, I'm sure it was a pretty good event. I'd bet there was someone they could call and say "So how do we get the truck into the parking area?" and they could get an answer. For the amateur race, it was an event with barricades and a lot of police, and it seemed to be worse-run and with less info than we get at most of the races put on by a local team.

Then there's the racing. The course sucked. Through and through, it was absolute crap. Because the pro race had such a big draw, the amateur race seemed to have a big draw as well. A lot of guy from hours away, and some that only raced a few races a year showed up. That combination made me seriously consider dropping out of the race a few times so I could save my equipment (I don't have the kind of money to replace my Zipp rims) and my body. I got lucky and I wasn't taken down by the crash, but a lot of guys weren't nearly as lucky.

So in the end, I won't be doing the Crystal Cup again. And not one of those "Until next year" type of things. Unless someone wants to pay me heaps of money to go there, it's not happening. And given my fitness level today, no one will be paying me to ride a bike for a very, very long time.

Ride Sally Ride

First off, the race is titled "The Ride Sally Ride" which is actually quite catchy in context of the street name being "Ride Sally Dr." and then, of course, the song. Without "The" at the beginning, however, it's just a song lyric, and loses its catchiness. So can we all agree to put the three letters at the beginning? Or at least just abbreviate it to RSR.

Now that we've taken care of that business:

Typically, the most exciting thing I do in a week will come between the finish line and 200 meters before said piece of red duct tape. The sprint is one of the coolest things in bike racing, and to be quite frank, it's one of my favorite parts. There's a level of control that you have given your training and form, but there's a lot of unknown going on at the same time. For example, I have no idea if the guy next to me will become the guy on top of me in under a second. And that's happened before, so I feel like I might have a knack for spotting it in advance. Maybe.

That wasn't the case yesterday, however. Driving down the beltway at 7 in the morning on Sunday is probably the only time that the road is anywhere near lightly trafficked. After the notoriously bad "270 spur" the road straightens out, 4 lanes on each side, and keeps going in its infinite loop of the nation's capital.

It was this combination of many easy driving features that made it so amazing to round a bend and see the very final stages of a car flipping, spinning, and generally getting screwed over.

I have to admit that there was a split second where I thought Dude, I'm headed to a bike race. I promised to lead my teammate out ... That thought didn't last long, though, and I slammed on the brakes.

To make a long (and pretty scary) story short, I was the first one there, and ended up in shin-high brush and undergrowth doing everything I could to hold a passenger-side door all of 8 inches open so that a 10 year-old boy and his sister could get out of the overturned, backward, and in-a-ditch car that was now a complete write-off.

A few other people showed up and helped get the boy down off the hill and to the shoulder of the road. We got everyone to a safe location, and I treated the boy for shock (using the term loosely).

In the "Wow, it's a small world" category, one of the guys that stopped was actually headed to the same race I was. Interesting how that works out. We were both looking at our watches, and by the time it was all said and done, we decided to be spectators.

Until we got there with like 40 minutes before the start. Then we decided we'd do what we could. So once the kit was on, I was registered, air was in the tires, etc. I had a whopping 5 minutes of warm-up, 2 minutes of strategy discussion, and then a couple laps of the course before we lined up.

The general plan was to get Tim the W and myself and Eric would work our asses off at the front and then lead-out. The problem is that all three of us race with a nervous disposition. If one guy goes up the road and looks weak, we'll still hunt him down. Even if we're the protected rider. It was for that reason that Eric and I had to really police the front of the race. If Tim felt like we were letting something go, he was going to chase it down. Which doesn't help win the sprint at the end. I did a ton of work on the front, and it was good to know that the race averaged 25.9 mph. That made me feel at least a little better when in the last few laps I wasn't exactly charging along with the surges that kept coming.

Eventually I think Tim figured out that he was behind the wrong horse (me) and he came around to try and get some position. I was completely cooked, and once I saw my 2 teammates safely up the road and sprinting, I sat up.

I finished in the pack and shortly called it a day. Driving home I realized that I had done more before 11 on Sunday than most people had done all weekend. That's a cool feeling to have.

When it was all said and done, Eric came in 6th and Tim came in 9th. Both of them got boxed in on the last corner before the sprint (I'm not a big fan of corners that close to the finish.) Sarah and Daniel both made it into the ambulance safely, and the EMTs said they were fine, but they wanted to take precautionary measures to get them to the hospital. I came home and took a nap while I "Watched" the Philly race.

Here's to hoping next week's Air Force race is significantly less exciting.

Kelly Cup

Should I apologize for not updating this sooner? Yeah, I probably should. I've done a few races, but they really haven't been a ton of fun to write about. Namely, I raced Turkey Hill a few weeks ago where I tried to go with a guy at at about 1.2-1.5K to go, but he didn't have the legs to do it at all, and I didn't have the legs to do it alone. Knowing I was screwed, I decided to just go ahead and pull everyone to the line. It was like leading out absolutely no one and everyone all at once. What I can say is that from 1K to go until about 200M to go, no one came around me. That means I held tempo super high, and would be a killer lead-out man if only I had a teammate right behind me. I didn't, though, so I just ended up with a 12th.

Then at Poolesville I had what is scientifically called a clusterfuck. I lost a bottle on the first trip over the dirt road section. Knowing that I didn't want to lose the other bottle, I closed my cage in closer a bit so it would be more secure. Taking a drink, I went to replace my bottle. It hit the cage where I had closed it down, and then I fumbled it. So I had taken like 2 sips of water for a 50 mile race. Fortunately, my teammate's dad had told me he would give me a bottle at the feed zone. I took him up on that and basically figured that if I could finish the race it would leave me so dehydrated I would be best to find my way to a hospital for a bag of fluids. Oh, and I tried to bridge to a 2-man break. That left me in no-man's land for about 5 miles. Then I gave up and the peloton wanted me to stay at the front. Not cool, guys. Shortly before finishing the 3rd (30ish miles) we went up a slight incline. I had just told my teammate Tim that I was feeling like crap and was almost out of water. He offered me his. Then brakes squealed, the pack bunched up, and someone went right into my front wheel. It just took me off into the dirt, but my chain dropped when it happened. I looked down at it, and though well, I could put this back on and chase to the peloton. That would be a pretty manly move. Or .... nah, fuck it, I'm staying right here. So that was the end of that race.

Today was the Baltimore Bike Jam/Kelly Cup that runs through Patterson Park in downtown Baltimore.

The course is paved to exactly the level you would expect of downtown Baltimore. There were no bits where you could see brick, but you got the feeling it was there every now and then. That and man-hole covers (that had paint pointing them out) that were way too high, and had little round ramps surrounding them. That or the pavers tried to make it less brutal to hit. I'm pretty sure they did a stunt show on those things afterward.

So we started riding, I missed my pedal because I'm a dumb-ass, and about 20 seconds later the attacks started. And they didn't stop. Again, the Team BBC crew was pretty thin for this race, and I knew that there would be no one to pull in the breaks or set tempo at the front. Which left it pretty much up to me. I did a lot of work at the front today, and took a couple digs in an attempt to make a break myself. None of that came to fruition.

What did stick was a solid attack by Mike Cohen from the Kelly Benefits team. With somewhere between 5-7 laps to go, he rocketed off the front. He had been off the front a few times before and I figured he was probably pretty tired. Also, he used to ride for BBC, and I don't mean him any disrespect when I say that I was convinced he wouldn't be able to hold on alone to the finish. I was wrong. We got time gaps from the road of 17 seconds and other numbers around there. He was just barely out of sight.

As typically happens there were only about 3-4 of us that wanted to do anything in the way of bringing him back. There was also rather rampant disorganization which didn't help anything at all. Every time I would take a pull, I would slow a bit, cruise to the left or right, and flick the opposite elbow. Nothing happened. So I would waggle the damn thing in the wind in some attempt to get other people to pull through. Ya know, like a pace-line. Didn't work. The only time people came by me were for attacks. Almost all of those attacks lacked heart and were easy to mark.

So I cruised it up to the sprint knowing that the best I could get was 2nd.

With 250ish meters to go, I dropped a gear and got to work. I looked up for a moment to see Mike Cohen with his arms raised as he crossed the line. Then I looked back at my sick new yellow shoes and kept pushing.

In the end I rocketed past everyone else and got the 2nd spot on the podium. Which means Cohen took the 7 points I needed to get my requisite 20 points to upgrade. That leaves me 2 points shy. I'll get those sometime soon.

There, now you're all caught up. I'll try to update this more often, but life can get in the way sometimes.

And a note on cornering: You may remember a post or two ago I said that people need to practice their cornering. This course really showed that. there was a wicked chicane at the bottom of the course. Last year in the wet it was super duper incredibly sketchy. This year, though, it was awesome! The problem is that most of the time there was someone in front of me which means I couldn't go in or come out as fast as I wanted. Or, there was no one in front of me and when I came out of the corner I had to sit up and wait for people to catch up. So, once again, go find a corner you can rail, and do it. You'll make me happier and we can race together all happy-like. And isn't that what it's all about?

Thanks for reading and I'll see you at the races.

p.s. I'll update this post with photos tomorrow or Tuesday

Dolan!

First and foremost, I am hereby instilling the 2 1/4 rule. I know I said in my last post that you should check back expecting some awesome writing and photography from my trip down a bit and then back up Skyline Drive. Photos like this ....

And how could you not want to know more about the ride that brought about a picture like that?

The problem, however, is that I'm not made of gold. If I were, I could quit my job (I actually couldn't, but that's not the point) and I would spend my days doing nothing but writing this blog, riding my bike, and drinking fine beers from across the world. Not necessarily in that order.

Since that isn't possible, I'll have to limit my blog posts to race recaps for the moment.

Hopefully I'll find some time in the future, but training and racing have taken up a solid point, being a family man takes up the other point, and somehow I have to fit my full-time job into the quarter-point. Which is very awkward given that they insist on some sort of draconian 8-hour schedule almost 5 days of every week.

Onward to the matter at hand: The Carl Dolan Memorial Howard County Library Other Names Yada Yada race.

I would love to put a picture of the racecourse map right about here, but it would take me like 10 minutes to figure out how to make that happen. Instead, picture a Nascar course with a tight turn at turn 4. And we kept turning right.

This was as close to a Home Race as I am going to get, and I'd be lying if I said I wasn't targeting it. About now, I'm really targeting everything I enter so I can get a ton of upgrade points, but this one I especially wanted to do well in.

Before I tell you how I did, though, I should tell you a bit about the race. First off, it was a field of 125 guys. That's a lot of testosterone, adrenaline, and every other hormone that makes guys do stupid, stupid things. That's why Dolan has the dubious honor of being the sketchiest race I've done in a long time. The last race I did that had me puckering that bad was the Bunny Hop Criterium last year. Apparently I wasn't the only one that forgot to take a few psi out of my tires before the start of a wet race because people were skidding and sliding everywhere. This race was in the dry, though. That means the speeds were much higher.

So let me just say a couple things about being sketchy, and let me acknowledge right now that I don't know everything, I'm not the best bike handler that's ever ridden, and I totally know what it's like to crash because i did something stupid. That's why my jersey has my name sewn on it.

Going up

One of the things that gets to me the most is the up-hill clusterfuck-crash. This often happens when one idiot forgets that the race is about to go up the same hill that it's gone up 10 times before. He forgets to shift into the right gear or stays in the drops too long. What happens next is chaos. I was toward the back when this happened, and fortunately everyone came out alright, but the guy next to me just about watched his carbon wheels become carbon bits at the expense of the curb.

Cornering

Stop sucking at this! Seriously, cornering should be something we're all pretty good at. Have you practiced your corning? I doubt it. Why? Because you want to be hella fast up the hills and across the flats. If you crash in a corner, though, not only will that stuff not matter but you'll be bleeding on the ground with a complete lack of sympathy from anyone. Every time you go around a (safe) corner, rail it with reckless ambition. It's better to crash on your own than to crash on the inside of a corner and take everyone out. Fortunately, again, this didn't come to fruition. I honestly don't know how some of those guys didn't crash, but to the best of my knowledge we all got through.

Except the sprint. If I'm honest, I had no idea there was a crash in the sprint until someone told me.

Before that, though, the circuit course provided ample opportunities for suicidal breakaways and subsequent suicidal drives to bring them back. I had the fortune of watching a couple teammates at varying times absolutely bury themselves to close those gaps down. Of all the things in the sporting world, I think that watching a teammate completely destroy his chances of finishing well in a bike race to save a protected rider is by far the coolest.

An American football player might defend against his QB getting sacked, but he

wouldn't give up his chance to wear a SuperBowl ring to keep some other guy out of trouble. That same analogy goes for basically every other sport i can think of. Watching a lead-out, or one guy bringing in a breakaway, is something you only see in cycling, and it's why this sport is so damn cool.

So with all that, I managed to come into the last lap at least a little fresh. granted, my heart was pounding out of my chest, but that's bike racing.

The sprint started somewhere around the 500m to go mark, and I knew I didn't have the power to sprint away or the endurance to keep pushing the pedals for that long. Everyone else was starting, and I figured it was way too early.

So I started sprinting. Because I'm a moron. I probably could have grabbed a wheel, held on, and kicked with 200m to go, but you know how adrenaline gets. As I watched the signs go by every 100 meters, I had varying thoughts. As I rolled over 200, I distinctly remember thinking "Oh shit, this is going to end badly."

I was totally spent. I kept kicking the pedals over, and somehow I came home somewhere around 6th or 7th.

Which marks my 3rd top-10 in 4 starts. 2 of those races were Cat3/Cat4 races . GamJams even classified me in their Cat3 Cup on accident. Also, this race counts the 3's and the 4's as being 2 different races run at the same time. Because of that, I actually won! So that's a win, a 5th, a 6th, and a pack finish. What's most important to me is that I've proven that I can be competitive with a Cat 3 field. In my book that's more important than winning a bunch of 4/5 races so you can get the points and move up.

That said, next week I'll be in Cancun getting my vacation on. The week after that, however, I'll be in the 4/5 race trying to collect some points out at Turkey Hill. I guess when it comes down to it, I'm ready to race with the 3's, and if I have to do some 4/5 races to make the points up quicker then I will. I think it's kind of bogus that that happens, but I definitely saw a Kelly Benefits rider in the 4/5 race at Dolan that was doing the same thing. Of course, after saying all that, I'll get totally shelled at T-Hill, and go home with my tail between my legs. But that's bike racing, and for some reason I love it.

Also, with the win comes an upgrade in beer selection. Remember to treat yourselves right out there.