Tuesday, July 1, 2008

Sweet, sassy!

Whew! I needed that. My last several races have not exactly shown the form I felt I have, and as it turns out put me into a bit of a funk. It was a little deceiving because it wasn't any one thing - just little bits and pieces that kept innocently piling up.
Anyhoo, with the planned MTB stage race postponed due to rain, I decided to do an OMBC race outside of Cincy. This was good because I was not spending the entire weekend away. This allowed me to spend an afternoon with my newest time distraction. More on that in a minute.
I was able to bridge to the two who launched uphill from the gun, and pip them for the hole shot into the single track after a lengthy road section. This was key since I had maybe 15 minutes of trail time, and the trail was definitely challenging - lots of sections that started to flow but then turned right. It took me two laps to get the flow, so my first two laps were not smooth at all. So unsmooth that I washed out of corners 2 times and clipped my pedal twice. End result was 3 spills and one dropped chain.
The road section was a blessing in disguise, even with a stiff headwind because I could flat drill it and make up some time. Heading into the third lap, I caught the 2nd place guy and let him make pace until I sensed we were getting reeled in by 4-7th. Naturally after I took over it was game over, and we cruised away. A long grinder proved to be my unintended launch pad, as I gapped the guy. Darn the luck, anyway. I ended up 90 sec down from 1st and 30 sec up on 3rd, so job done. I definitely had to earn it and felt good about my performance. A nice motivational shot in the arm heading into a few mui importante' races. OH, and all 3 laps were within 20 seconds of each other. That's 1% for those keeping track.

So back to my Saturday distraction...



I even got them laced up, only to find I got some bad info and the spokes I had were about 2mm too long. So I got to break them back down. Sweet. Anyway, I'm working on the correct length so I should be able to have them built up by next week. Seeing as they are tre' pimp, I will be ever-so-unPRO and rock a set of tubulars on the very first ride they are glued up. Poseur status be damned. They're too sweet to leave bottled up... 1400g for an aero wheelset? Yep, thank you very much.
Two sets, you may ask? Why cyclocross, silly. But having that sweetness hang in my garage for two months without using a set for road borders on sacrilege. Besides, I did have to sell my wonderfully awesome Shamals to cover these wheels, so it's only right that I get to use them.

That's all for now.

-the ATM

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