Breck Epic '22: Stages... dunno. Who's even keeping track?

Let's just call it the final stage... although there's the infamous Stage Seven which is held on the fart-infested dance floor at a dive bar called The Gold Pan.

Stage Five (but mebbe Six?): Gold Dust

Once again, we start in waves of ten... or so.  Fellow condo-mates Colleen (1st place female SS) and Matty Crawdaddy have moved themselves into my wave so we can ride a solidarity pace on the final day.  I personally have nothing left to prove, and fully expect to drop back a place or two, as I'm within striking distance of one or two other riders.  Finishing and having a good time making okay bike race is all I care about.

I end up kinda doing my own thing on the long road climbs.  It's easy for me to climb when my heart is only running at 150BPM, but going any slower makes it difficult to stay on top of the gear.  Being slightly ahead of Colleen and Matty at the top of Boreas Pass (twice) meant I had plenty of time for the PBR hand ups.

Back down the mountain and drive into the fall line trail called Broken Wheel...

which happened to be quite the nasty ditch.  OG Pisgah fan bois would love it.  OG Pisgah fan bois love their ditches.

Despite holding up a few times for my little frands, and also despite two stops for PBRs, and also also despite finishing second from last on the final stage, I somehow moved up to 7th overall in the single speed field?

Stage racing is always confuse.

Broken Montana was kind enough to drive a bottle of tequila down to the finish line.

From there. the blurring began.

Back to the condo, pack my bike whilst still chamois'ed up.  Shower, eat, crack a beer, pack my bags... head up to the venue tent to grab my aid bag, and...

discover the leftover hand up beers and aid station gels and decide that if someone is going to put them to use, it might as well be us.

The banquet occurred with some of the usual shenanigans.  Fewer objects were tossed about tho.

I'm sure Lachlan has plenty of pictures of himself.

FWIW: every time since the first time Flesh Storm happened "naturally" in 2015 with DAN DURLAND and myself, we have consulted with the women SS'ers to be sure they're all on board.  What started as a goof on the concept of "podium girls" at a time when road cycling was just starting to grapple with how not okay it is to treat women as a decoration in men's cycling has now morphed into this organized chaos.  Truly a tribute to how bad ass these women really are (Colleen woulda been third place in the Pro Women category based on her time).  Will it even happen if certain people don't show up next year?  Who knows?  Who cares?

Anyways, fueled by all the stupidity to go further into the night, we eventually headed to The Gold Pan.

Might be a bouncer talking to promoter Mike Mac about mebbe not being jubilantly hoisted in the air by racers.

That's me in a Mike Mac/Nick sammich...

And the evening ended when Nick and I essentially "closed" the bar down while actually looking for his phone and wallet with the big bouncer until 2:00AM when someone back in the condo answered Nick's phone and we found out he never had either "lost" thing in his possession.

I assume the cops in Breck deal with chaos worse than us every night of the week.  The streets were alive with excite on the walk (sorta towards) home.

And after very little sleep and a long day of travel, and then a day of undoing all the things, and then a day of going back to work and reality...

I almost made it through 29 months of the pandemic without getting my ticket punched.  No idea where I got it, and honestly, what difference would knowing make?  I'm fortunate that my workplace still gives us some Covid PTO that doesn't impact my actual PTO.

So now I'm sitting on the couch, taking my meds, and crossing my fingers that I'll be able to pull off the Shenandoah Mountain 100k in a little over a week... sorta but not really straight off the couch.  Mebbe my Covid-related "intestinal distress" will get my down to fighting weight?  

Mebbe.