A Strange Race Day

Team Bi-Atch was good and ready for the Tour de Lake this Sunday. We got on the road only 50 minutes later than planned, and the race was only 1/2 hour farther away than we thought it was. Good thing we always plan to get there plenty early (cough, cough).

About 1/2 there, just as we finished driving through the torrential rains, we realized that we would really be cutting it close to the (what we thought was a) 1 PM start. That's when we started to see the turtles in the middle of the road. Being good vegetarians that we all are, we had to stop and rescue the little guys, even if it meant being that much later to the race.

Goose even found a turtle that had "Colby's" digits painted on his shell with white-out. I guess it was a slow evening there in the middle-of-nowhere WV.

Anyhow, we finally arrived at the race venue, after Jackie and I both spent some time dry-heaving in the back seat (getting to the middle-of-nowhere WV requires many miles of extremely curvy roads). It was about 12:35 at this point. Much to our chagrin, we pull in to find the rest of the not-so-happy WVMBA racers all lined up to start and super nice JR was patiently making everybody wait for us. Guess they'd been waiting for awhile, since the race was supposed to start at 12 PM. Ooopeee. Instead of being 25 minutes early, we were 35 minutes late.

Anyhow, they patiently waited another 10 minutes while the 3 of us ran around like maniacs. (THANK YOU, WVMBA. BI-ATCHs DEFINITELY HEART WVMBA!!) Goose didn't get to use his fancy race wheel, I had to use the blown-out pedals for the 3rd race in a row, and Goose also ALMOST started his race with no helmet. We were a little scatterbrained. Gunnar has had extensive experience in this sort of situation, so I believe he was pretty much all set.

Here I am turning to look for Jackie in the middle of the race. Must learn to focus...

Anyhow, it all turned out well, b/c we raced under beautiful blue skies, got to sleep in an hour later than everyody else, and we all won our races (gunnar = pro/expert men, Bunny = pro-expert women, and Goose = singlespeed). I guess adrenaline makes for a good warm-up.

Skies were nice, but the trails were still a bit mucky and such, and that second lap of the Lake sure does take its toll, just look at the face of this young man-

And I didn't clean my bike in the Lake (bad Bunny) but if I had we wouldn't have this nice shot of how mucky it actually got out there! (good Bunny)-


I rescued 1 turtle during the race, and Goose found yet another turtle with digits painted on it on the way home. This time I believe it was Austin's number.

I guess the moral to this story is:

If you are ever in need of a friend in the the middle-of-nowhere WV, try to find a turtle.