Leave my house at 7:30AM to help with last minute venue stuff. Turn around and go back home for the pizza I left in the fridge at 7:32AM. Make the most awkward 8:05AM purchase of a twelve pack of PBR a few blocks from the warehouse.
Get to the warehouse and see that the team has 99% of everything dialed in already. Witness some wrestling on the concrete floor, break out my camera to take too many stupid fish-eye closeups, see that Weldon Weaver is on the scene taking photos with his pro-level equipment (making anything I take pointless), ride Tumas's fat bike over some railroad ties scattered in the weeds near the port-a-potties.
The proper amount of time in meetings and such, we head out to the first venue. I get some nice interval workouts, corking intersections and then trying to work my way all the way back to the front to be ready to do it again. We arrive at an old, abandoned park, our first stage. My job here is to make sure no one takes a wrong turn at a very well marked intersection on the first lap. Done. Now what?
Wait for the race to finish, we leave (eventually), more intersection corking, next venue.
Racers are to pair up, back to back, locking arms and LeMans run to their parked bikes. One racer is the odd man out (his accountabilibro had to go back to the warehouse), so I offer to help him out. At "go," he drags me across the field like I'm a piece of carry-on luggage and he's late for his plane.
He's the first on his bike and into the trail.
Beer at the end of that stage and pizza. I pull garbage duty... because I want to see this piece of beautiful woods left in pristine condition... before they tear it apart in the name of progress.
Then the long haul to the third stage. We are on some busy roads, but somehow drivers are pleasant when they see 150 or so happy faces riding along on a Sunday down an interstate service road.
Anyways, third stage. My job is once again to man a pretty well-marked corner. As soon as the first few racers go by, we get reports of an injured rider*. The stage is shut down, the proper authorities properly evacuated him, we made sure the rider and his father's bikes made in into the back of an emergency vehicle... and we left. No one had a problem with skipping the stage at that point.
*the rider ended up having a minor concussion and is doing great
This is the last photo I took:
Along with some co-spectators, we devise plans to tackle Watts. A miscount of laps and we miss that chance.
Back to the warehouse. Beer. Food...
and then a wicked inside a dark warehouse lit by Christmas lights started with a weird floor pump/exploding balloon LeMans crit with multiple (and quite entertaining) heats.
Then after that, awards, music, more beer...
Once again, for the third year in a row, Faster Mustache has put on one of the coolest events I've ever been a part of in any manner...
A big thanks to those members of the team who put out the bulk of the work. If you had a good time, make sure you thank an FM'er (other than me) the next time you see them.
And before I forget, we could not have done this without the support of our sponsors.
Posts
No comments:
Post a Comment