Sunday, June 10, 2007

No ribbons this week

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I put in some big hours on Saturday.  It started with the Intermountain Cup race at Deer Valley.  I picked a good week to move up to pro because a lot of guys are in town for the NORBA race on the same course next weekend.  There were 30 pros when we lined up at the start of the race, which is a record for the Intermountain Cup Series.    At the line I joked to Brad that I could be the first ICUP pro ever to finish in 30th place.  He told me his goal was to not finish in a position that hadn’t been done before. 



At the start I watched the real pros (for whom racing is more than a hobby) pull away from the field.   I was a reluctant to push myself, partly because I had bent my derailleur hanger the night before while preriding the course, I fixed it by borrowing the hanger from one of my commuter bikes, and partly because I didn’t want to try to hang with the pros only to blow up on my second lap, but mostly because they’re a whole lot faster than me.    



I rode a conservative race.  I didn’t get passed after the first lap, and passed a guy on the fourth lap up the Little Stick climb.  I finished 22nd and was happy. 



Some things I thought about during the race:



  • I’m really lucky when Mags is there to work the feed zone for me.   She was visiting her sister in Logan yesterday so Ryan said his wife could hand us bottles.  However, she arrived late and never found our bottles that we’d left in the feed zone.  I rode the first three laps on one small water bottle.  I would have stopped my second time through to pick one up but I couldn’t find them either.  I never ran out but probably should have been drinking more than I was.  My brother gave me his bottle as I went through the third time.  It was a lifesaver. 


  • There was a long line for registration before the race.  I’d say there were about 60 of us waiting to pay our entry fee 30 minutes before the start of the race.  I was about five places from the start of the line when I saw local pro, and probably the fastest guy in the state, Jason Sager cut to the front of the line.  He said something to the woman at the desk then started writing out a check.  Maybe he had a valid reason, but from my perspective it was an arrogant and classless act. 


  • On my second lap I was trying to pass a female racer on some tight, twisty single track.  I told her that I was behind her and that I’d like to pass “in the next safe spot.”   She must have had some bad experiences getting passed earlier in the day because she shouted at me that if I hip checked her as I came around that “she’d find me and hunt me down.” 


  • A bug hit me in the face on one of the descents, right between the eyes.  Somehow he got behind my sunglasses and started crawling around on the lens.  He was so close to my eye that I couldn’t tell what kind he was, or if he could bite or sting me.  Fortunately he found his way out after a minute or two. 


After the race Aaron suggested we ride home.  In my post-race stupor I thought it sounded like a good idea.  We rolled out of the parking lot just as they started handing out awards.  One of the perks of moving up to pro is that I would no longer have to hang around after a race to collect a silly ribbon.   We started climbing up Royal Street, picked up a lightly-used single track and continued climbing up to the Mid Mountain Trail. 



I could feel the quart of chocolate milk I had drank for a recovery drink turning to chocolate cottage cheese as I climbed.  But eventually things settled down and I settled into a slow but steady pace. 



Fifteen or twenty miles later we came to the ridge connector trail, which led us up through a bit of mud and snow to the crest of the Wasatch Mountains and the top of Millcreek Canyon.  I left my conservationist land ethic at the top when we chose to blast down on the muddiest and snowiest trails we had ridden since cyclocross season.



Six hours, 45 miles and two flat tires after we’d left Deer Valley, I rolled up my driveway wet, tired, starved and covered in mud.   I’d take that over a ribbon any day. 



3 comments:

  1. Wow, it's good to hear that I was missed although I was taking care of some important family business-- i.e. interrogating the new boyfriend of my eldest niece-- Tanya. I'll be at the next race but I think it would help feed zone morale if we could also make it on the podium with stellar hand-offs. Also,Chad I'm glad to see that your new photo is not showing any cleavage.

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  2. arrogant and classlessJune 11, 2007 at 7:02 PM

    I was writing a check for 6 people who'd already picked up their numbers and signed waivers...

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  3. Well I don't even know all of you but I certainly do hope this turns up into some kind of huge & controversial brouhaha. Sounds like sparks might fly. Maybe we'll all look back and remember the summer that Chad's blog went berserk...
    Chris

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