Bad Idea Training Day 5 and 6: It's Raining Meh

With the lightweight ti bike all built up last Tuesday for the short track on Sunday my goal was to wake up Saturday and get used to it. When I rolled outta bed it was raining so I went with plan B. I spent 5-6 hours on the floor pulling carpet outta our hallway and removing staples and the little spiky strips from the floor. I had promised The Pie I would make the hallway into an area better suited for our interactions with foster pets (no carpet to clean up or miscellaneous items to get chewed up), so what better day to do it than Valentines Day?

I woke up Sunday feeling the effects of being forty years old and spending all day rolling around on a hard floor. For some reason my glutes, quads, hamstrings, and knees felt like I had been on a eight hour ride. Bad Idea Training Day 5 was in the books and a perfect setup for Day 6.

At the short track on my untested machine with no tools in the car I realized I had set myself up for great success. I figured the 36X18 was gonna put me in some trouble here and there, but for the most part it would be quite manageable. When we lined up it was apparent that the single speed field had been almost halved from what it was two weeks ago (the last time I raced), and that my goal of slightly better than mid pack was gonna be slightly more difficult with the lack of pack fodder (I can say that since I was amongst the pack fodder).

The first two laps had their fair share of exciting moments. The Thylacine (with the custom IF fork) is still the best handling bike I've ever ridden, but being that I'd been off of it since July it was scary as shit. It requires much less effort to turn than the "yet to be named Zion", so I was cutting a lot of the banked corners waaaaaayyyy too tight and popping out early. Once I settled in I was able to hold my own in the woods, and early on the 36X18 wasn't really killing me. This time around I was able to see the leaders for three to four laps before they were outta sight and working their way back to my backside.

I ended up spending the majority of the race 10-15 seconds behind the guy that was gonna end up being the man I needed to beat to achieve my goal of better than mid pack. I finished 7th of 13... six in front of me and six behind.

So there you have it, the 2009 Short Track Season:

Three at bats
One better than mid pack finish
One worse than mid pack finish
And one dead-on mid pack finish

Stellar.

I will say this, it felt sooooooooo good to ride a rigid fork again. Although I locked out my Fjox fjork when I was racing the other two times it still moved when the lockout threshold was overcome by a large bump. It felt sappy and dull, and made the semi-technical climb on the course awkward, but with the rigid fork everything just felt right. Once the MOOTS gets here I should be ready to rock/run/roll/sport the rigid fork quite rockingly.

Am I over my short track shortcomings?

"No, I don't think I'll ever get over Macho Grande'."