The First Short(er than I thought) Track of the "Season"

After dealing with plumbing nightmare of the week number three or four (I lost count), I hopped on the Misfit diSSent Brontoawesomeous Meatplow V.5 and rolled the 9-10 miles over to Renaissance Park.  The Gentle Ginger passed me driving down Woodlawn and offered me a scoop, but I was considering the commute part of the day in order to get more than forty minutes on the bike for the weekend.  At the venue, sign up, plate up, find Mudman and his compadres hollering at racers in the woods, watch a pretty good finish in the women's expert race between local Bonnie Kleffman and Pisgah Tavern/Oskar Blues rider Jordan Salman, kit up, and warm up (do slow circles in the conjoining parking lot while bull shitting with other single speeders).

Faster Mustache (presented by Refresh Technologies) has decided to put out for getting six racers on the course every week.  It's my responsibility to be one of those slot fillers for at least 2-3 races.  A certain amount of external pressure being removed, the only goal here was to go in circles flying the team colors until I was told to stop.  Definitely not performance driven, I decided to leave the tube, CO2s, bottles and whatnot on the bike in the name of all that is lazy.

I lined up in the front row.  Not to get a good position going into the woods, but because I was one of the few people paying attention when we were called to the line.

Go.

Four seconds, I'm out in front.

Five seconds, riders start coming around... and it doesn't seem like it's going to stop.

My three teammates in the single speed field all came around...

Zac

photo cred: Street Ghost/Kevin Thompson

Colin

photo cred: Street Ghost/Kevin Thompson

 and Joey...

photo cred: Street Ghost/Kevin Thompson

who was rocking a Turbospoke.

Joey was kind enough to let me dip into the woods in front of him, and we were probably sitting not so pretty in the back of the top ten with the lead riders pulling away in the woods.  I did get to hear the Turbospoke for awhile, so there was that.
Outta the woods, I put something into the pedals, caught up to Colin, made my way through some traffic, and got Zac's wheel.  Woods again...

photo cred: Street Ghost/Kevin Thompson

Back out and on Zac's wheel.  I come around, tell him to hop on, pass Robert Pugh, and look back.   No one came with me.  Woods again.

photo cred: Mudman

From there, I lost track of time and laps.  I could at least see Russell Henderson and Chase Preszio opening up a huge gap at the front... for awhile... then no more.

 photo cred: Street Ghost/Kevin Thompson

I might be in third... might not.  I wait for Robert to catch up.  I take his wheel.

 photo cred: Street Ghost/Kevin Thompson

I sat on his wheel for what must have been an annoyingly long time before I came around him on the gravel road.

"Are you racing-racing?"

His response didn't register, but I apologized for being a douchey wheelsucker and took my turns at the front.  Not knowing how much longer we had to go and being confused by what I heard as I passed by the start/finish, I just kept going in circles.  Robert could out coast me on the descents, but didn't seem to have the punch on the climbs.  I figured if I ever knew we were getting close to the finish, I'd gas it there and keep it pinned to the finish.

We ran into some 50+ Masters Men traffic.  Most of the time, we both got a clean pass.  Once we didn't, and it was bad timing for Robert.  I ended up with a gap that stuck, came in thinking I ended up in 3rd, 4th, or 5th... and ended up 3rd.

And then it was back to the woods to cheer/beer and such before feelings of smugness took over and I bailed on the ride home, instead hopping into the Gentle Ginger's Jeep I had shunned just hours earlier.