Anyhoo, I wrapped up my summer campaign on the road with a 2nd at the Warsaw crit. Always a bridesmaid, never a bride. Er, well, groomsman anyway. I'd like to think I played it smart since a teammate of mine was off the front, then when the group brought him back I countered. From that, a two man break formed and we worked well together. Of course, hindsight is 20/20 but I figured if I kept attacking from maybe three laps out, he was strong enough to hold on such that he'd either just sit on or we'd slow our pace and the peleton would catch us. I continued my error in judgment by letting him come around before turn three, thinking I could come around after turn four. Wrong answer... there was just not enough road. That and he was pretty strong. So I punked myself into second. Idiot. Good thing is the cash was still green so I'll take it.
Did the 1/2/3s race after that and managed to be at the front a few times, then mid-pack the rest of the time. I was really only interested in finishing in the group anyway, so job done there. On the way out of town I think I kinda hit the wall of both sleep and energy depletion. Conveniently, there was a Mexican restaurant on the way home which was crucial in providing much needed instant gratification.
The reason for my lack of sleep was that I got my new cross frame the week before and finally got to build it up on Thursday. I finally stopped at what turned out to be 3am, which is funny since it felt like about 1. ugh. No matter - the bike is sweet!
At the time of the pic, I still had my road tires on so you'll just have to imagine knobbies on the wheels. Also, I have since cut off the steer tube, just needed to get a shakedown run to make sure the cockpit would be positioned correctly. Once I finish with the gluing of tires, expect a new pic.I was smart enough to snap a pic of my road bike with the sick wheels since I had yet to do that.
Looks pretty PRO to me.Let's see... just finished about 10 hours on the bike in the last 3 days, so that's pretty sweet. Probably went too hard a few times, but it's all good.
Sunday found me on an exploratory CX ride over hill and dale. I had taken a few different turns on my road bike about a month back and stumbled onto a gravel climb, so I decided to revisit it.
Turns out it was a good thing. It maybe went up for about a half mile but at the next intersection (still gravel) it kicked up again. I went right and climbed again then started to descend. It was naturally sketchy since 25-30 mph on loose gravel with turns at the bottom were the order of the day, but I managed not to take a digger. I think all told, there was about 5 miles of gravel. Pretty damned cool.Towards the end of the ride, I stopped at a friend's house since he was outside. Naturally the talk turned to beer and how he didn't like a porter in the summer. When I said I liked them anytime of the year he handed me a few. Being a little slim on capacity, I did what anyone would do in my position - enter Super domestique mode.
What the pic doesn't show is that I still had a few Clif bars left plus a water bottle (and no cages on the bike) so I shoved everything non-beer related down my back under the bib strap. I made the last 20 minutes home without so much as a hoot from any rednecks, which almost makes me think they weren't paying attention. Surely a redneck would appreciate a long neck or two sticking out of a jersey pocket, no?
To wrap things up, I finished my long weekend with an MTB ride. Just as I was ready to roll out, a few cats from Louisville pulled up and we started chatting. It became quickly apparent they were not slow, so we set out together. Not 10 minutes into the ride, I got stung by a bee. This mostly sucks since I'm allergic to them, but also because it was on my ankle where there is no meat so it really flipping hurt. There was not a whole lot I could do, so we rolled on. Ended up with just over 2.5 hours of ultra dusty trails that capped off a fantastic weekend. We even tried to eat Mexican but the place I was headed was closed. WTF?!? Terribly pissed, I pulled into a Wendy's since the guys had to head south sooner than later and driving across town to find another Mexican place was just not in the cards.
So there it is, I'm all up to date. Later.
-the ATM
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