Last night Mags, Ryan and I made our way up to Soldier Hollow for another round of Shoot ‘em up short track. Like last time, this was a high stakes race, only this time the last finisher was to treat the rest of us to churros from a local Mexican joint.
I’ve been feeling generous lately, and Ryan’s a sensitive guy. As you can see, he still hasn’t outgrown his love of dinosaurs.
I thought maybe it would be nice to make it so Ryan wouldn’t lose again. I wanted to throw the race, but I couldn’t make it obvious, otherwise he would see through it.
I started planning my fall a week ago when I cracked my Paragon, so I would have to race on my single speed last night. It climbs fast but I tend to spin out on the flat sections where guys with gears can leave me in the dust. It was all part of the plan.
I didn’t want to show up fresh either, so I had a strenuous workout at lunch. Yeah that’s right, I went bowling.
People laugh when I say I get worn out from bowling, but I’m not trying to be funny here. Well OK, even I laugh at the thought of bowling as an athletic activity. But if done right, bowling can be a good workout for your arms, core and quads. After three games my control is shot, which is exactly what I needed to make sure Ryan wouldn’t lose. Besides, I wanted to test out my deluxe new bowling shoes. Who knew Dexter made ‘athletic’ equipment?
Next, I made sure that we arrived at Soldier Hollow with no time to warm up or take a few practice shots in the shooting range. This was easy since it was my turn to drive. Then again, it’s not as if any amount of practice is going to improve my shooting. (I did nine of a possible twenty five penalty loops last night.)
There’s more. Usually before a race I check, and double check, my tire pressure, to make sure it matches the trail conditions well. Last night my front wheel was feeling a little low. I tried to use Ryan’s floor pump to top it off but it wouldn’t fit because my deep v-shaped rims allow for only a little bit of the valve stem to protrude. There wasn’t enough valve there for his pump to grab on to. I’m pretty sure I lost some air when I tried pumping it up.
I will go to great lengths to lose a race when I need to. Ryan is that kind of friend. That’s why I decided to crash on the third lap. It hardly felt like a sacrifice. There was a steep switchback at the top of the course that was really rutted and dusty. It’s the kind of turn where you use your wheels more as rudders than wheels; just holding on and sliding through. On my third lap I missed the best rut for sliding though so when I leaned into the turn at the bottom my tubeless, and under-inflated, front tire rolled off the rim.
I didn’t crash then, that came later. I didn’t have a pump or CO2 for inflating my wheel, so I figured I’d ride it flat to the lap area where surely a spectator would have a pump I could borrow. The crash came the next time I tried to turn. I thought I might have to drop out but luckily another racer came by and gave me a couple of CO2 cartridges to air up my wheel. I now had some raspberries to prove that I was racing my hardest. My plan was working perfectly, but I still had to finish the race; otherwise Ryan’s victory would feel cheap. It’s no fun to win when your competition can’t even finish the race.
Maybe my attempts to lose were a little too obvious, because Ryan figured me out. He wasn’t about to let me throw the race and turn him into a charity case—no way. So what did he do? On his fifth and final lap he pretended to forget the rules.
Yup, at the end of his last lap Ryan skipped the shooting range entirely and went straight for the finish line, where he pretended to be excited about finally beating me. He was walking around with his shoulders back, his chest puffed, telling everyone that he’d beaten me. Ryan’s a pretty good actor. Then Mags, who had smoked us both (next time we’re making her race in the expert category so she has to do more than three laps), played right into his ploy by telling him that he’d forgotten to do his final round of shooting.
Pretending to be embarrassed about his ‘mistake’, Ryan got back on his bike and rode over to the shooting range to take his final five shots. Meanwhile, I was finishing my last two penalty loops and believed my efforts had paid off. I was going to lose. Then I saw Ryan rolling in behind me after shooting a perfect five for five. He had beaten me at my own game.
Shucks, I won again. Churros were on Ryan.
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