Best laid plans and all...
Saturday, my only "concept of a plan" (that's now considered a plan when addressing the general public) was to halp Dr Mike bleed his brakes and do a cog/chain swap, go ride a few laps at the Shart Tarck course (he hasn't seen it in years), and then go play bikes at Airline until we got tired of doing laps. Then post-ride refreshments at Brawley's... home, shower, start laying out clothing options, prep my bike, and squeeze the sads out of my legs.
We got started on the bike work later than anticipated. I was able to get his rear brake from going ineffectively to the bars doing nothing to doing braking type stuff like slowing down and also stopping. We managed to get our asses on the bikes by 2:00pm... that is until Dr Mike punctured his rear tire after four miles, and the Orange Seal wasn't doing the trick nor the two bacon strips we stuck in there...
Shit.
Drive back to my house to add some TruckerCo Cream and another plug and we're back out on the trail at Airline before 4:00pm and drinking our first Brawley beer in the dark. By the time I got home, I'd lost all desire to do any of the rest of my concept of a plan. So goes it when I find Little Sip in the cooler before I make my leave of the premises.
When I woke up at 8:00am, I realized I had a lot to do as far as getting me and my bike ready for 40° and rain, that is, if I wanted to get to there in time to check in, get dressed, and warm up. I grabbed pretty much all the clothing options and threw them in the backseat of the Honda Fit of Rage (because I'm not riding my bike over in this weather), drove to the overflow parking lot (assuming the main lot was full), checked in, saw the lot wasn't full, drove my car back around to the other side of the park to get ready... and forgot to anticipate just how many people were going to want to talk to me about "the bike." Somehow, between the titty-dicking around and the conversations and nineteen wardrobe changes, my warmup (at least that's what I call what I do) was minimal at best.
Line up at the front next to what looked like an athlete to my left and Türd (also an athlete but huskier and more hirsute and in a flannel shirt) to my right. There were loads of familiar faces in the field and some not so much. Nineteen of us, because even when the weather is shite, you can always expect the dumb single speeders to show up anyway. I checked out the athlete's tensioned SS conversion and saw his 34X18, so he either knows what's what or that's just what he has. Short conversation, but pretty sure he said this was his first single speed race, but obvs not his first rodeo... but that said, are you really that much better at your second rodeo?
I digress.
In the back of my head, I tried to remind myself that this is only the first of five races, so keep it upright, try to have fun, and finishing are the only real goals on a day like today.
"GO!" and clipped in on the first try, and I'm guessing I put the "32 inch wheels are going to suck at accelerating" commentary to bed because I managed to enter the woods from the pavement in second place. That's despite me being a 130lb, 57 year old man capable of making minimal watts. Then the athlete did "athlete" stuff. Despite the baby diarrhea mud, he put a gap into me like it was his job. Although I'd been enjoying the extra traction provided by the big wheels for a couple weeks now, the Aspens are not frands with this kinda mud. I already knew this, because I tried to use them a year or two ago at Winter Shart Tarck with the same results.
Pop out of the trail on lap one to the flat gravel road, and what feels like a tidal wave of riders came by... Calvin, John, Türd, Brad (arch nemesis... at least in his mind)... dammit. From second to sixth in less than a lap.
There you have it. What you've been waiting for... a picture of a 5' 6.5" quinquagenarian man on a 32" wheeled biked. Not so strange looking, emmaright? Welcome.
Follow Brad into the woods, and since he's from out of town and I've ridden this course for what feels like half my life, I know the lines... he doesn't yet. I'm on his wheel, try to come around on the climb, he gets a little cheeky, and I have to wait until we get back out on the gravel to make a pass stick.
Now I'm able to see Türd and count out how many seconds of a gap he has on me. Shit birds. A five second plus gap has become ten seconds plus. That lap cost me some, and we're going to start bumping into lapped traffic, so now it's going to come down to timing. Will Türd get held up because this is where luck matters almost as much as abilities? I never got stuck too badly on the third lap, but I did lose my shit trying to take my desired line through a technical section only to find some of the worst mud on the course. Had to clip back in and restart and...
I came out of lap three still within sight of Türd, but now twenty seconds back. Look back and I have a similar gap to Brad... so now I'm in no man's land for the final two laps. The only motivation to "try" now being you just don't quit because you never know...
Unless you do know. I ended up in fifth place. So there's that... with plenty of jeering the entire day from the hearty but also hardy crowd that braved the rain and cold to heckle. Appreesh.
I'd say here's to better planning this weekend, but assuming Central NC doesn't get whackadoodled by a blizzard*, I've got plans Saturday that are certainly going to impact my performance despite any and all efforts to do otherwise.
* Jeebus, we really gonna get whackadoodled by a blizzard?!?!!?
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