2025 Winter Shart Tarck: Race три

Well...


Me... this past Sunday morning.  As appropriate as it could possibly be.

Another blessed weekend of being alive, and despite residing in North Carolina, I'm marking one month without a proper mountain bike ride in any way, shape, or form.  On top of that, and I'm probably not alone here, the last two weeks have been one of the longest years of my adult life.

All that said, I have air in my lungs, a fantastic wife person, a pretty good dog, and I've got my finger on the hour hand ready to push it backwards and get some daylight back into my life very soon.

Responsibilities and wet trails saw me just riding around town exploring new (to us) greenways with Dr Mike on Saturday.  I did little more to prepare myself or my bike for round three of Shart Tarck aside from adorning my frame with a decal refresh courtesy of Sean of the now (and has been for a short while) defunct Vertigo Cycles.

All pretty and proper and ready to be my wheels for any unforeseeable upcoming apocalyptical situation.  Sorry, I've seen The Road, and I just don't think shopping carts are the vehicle of choice.

I bet you can't even take that thing off sweet jumps.

So, a special Groundhog Day version of Shart Tarck, meaning somehow I wake up to "I Got You, Babe," and then Ned Ryerson... I mean Dr Mike* shows up to scoop me at 10:00am which is usually 10:12am... which doesn't really matter because our 11:25am start always ends up being an 11:45am start.

* Not saying there's any physical similarities between Dr Mike and Ned Ryerson (aside from glasses).  They're just the first major recurring characters in these semi-related stories.

Same call up spot at the start as last week... miss the pedal on the first stroke... mebbe this won't be Groundhog Day after all.

Get off the pavement and into the dirt as far back as I now expect to be yet everyone always asks me "what are you doing this far back?"  Get some argy bargy tangling action going on that makes me feel alive for a hot second, and then just settle into the pain of it all.

photo cred: Pisgah Paparazzi

I'm doing the math in my head... "week three of five... five laps per week... eleven laps down... fourteen to go... ninety eight bottles of beer on the wall... I need to get to that wall ASAP before more bottles should happen to fall..."

photo cred: Sara G

This must be the first lap, being followed by the tall yute who's probably going to be crushing it in a year or two and then my perpetual carrot/local nemesis Charles who will finish slightly in front of me but just out of reach because that's how the story has been written.

My eyes are mostly ahead and dead-on Daniel, because today has been announced as the double points race, and with that, he has a great opportunity to push me off the five deep wide angle podium.  My only motivation to remain on the pain train is that $40 gift card to some bike shop and my internal drive to not be a quitter, although I've quit things in the past because... burrito?  Sitting up is the same as sitting out, so I keep the efforts high, and almost pull off negative splits the whole race.  

From my prime vantage point, I can see where Daniel is faster than me, and I can also see where my advantages are.  Week three of doing the math, and it seems like as long as I can convince myself to stay in the red where I'm able to make my biscuits, the outcome will be pretty much what it has the last two weeks... 

And it is, sorta.  Daniel really made me work for it, non-series interloperSS managed to push me back yet another place on the day, and I continue to hold onto fifth overall.  I just need to keep my shit together for two more weeks.

Then comes the big moment whence I will be exalted for all my great efforts...

Me out here counting my groundhogs before they hatch.