Hanging out, ready to sing some Blues

Tuesday, April 7, 2009

Early season skinny tyre action!!!





Well fan, I do not have any fat tire updates but I do have a little double header road racing action. Saturday I headed up to the Tour of Walkersville a 70ish mile road race near Frederick, MD. The Pro1/2 was stacked with 80+ of the Mid-Atlantics toughest roadies and me the lone MTBer. We were single file and in the gutter from minute one echeloning Belgium Euro style, man was it windy, ouch. Then bam a big ole crash only three miles in. I did not go down but I did have to pull some super macho MTBer moves that found me with my foot down facing the wrong way. Eeck, a group of 15ish got away and a group of 20ish were heading out to chase. I chased, chased and chased some more. I got with a group of about 8 guys and assumed the “main” group would catch us in a lap or two. They never did. It was a good hard training day but as for racing not really. It was an odd day because of that early wreck. Sadly, there were a few other bad wrecks with one fella getting a lift out in a helicopter. I can only hope he is ok and that was only a precaution. By days end I ended up 22nd out of the 25 that finished. An epic in the mean wind and I did the fat tire peeps proud!!! Oh, I was only one there so I did myself proud. Yay me!!

I then high tailed over to Gunnar and Betsy’s house for another road race outside of Pittsburgh, Pa on Sunday morning.

The Mingo Road is a super cool little circuit. The P1/2/3 had 40ish guys lining up pretty and early. I do believe I was the only one in this group that had raced the day before and man were my legs stiff. I was a bit afraid going up the climb on the first lap as my legs felt like 2 by 4’s. Gunnar was moving and shaking with the mover a shakers up front while I was a spectator from the pack on the first two laps. The old man flatted going into lap 3 I believe at the same time things got real macho and fast up the climb. Sweet, I found my legs and crested to climb 3rd wheel. I engaged in some minimal macho moves near the front for a few laps but we stayed as a group of about 25 for the rest of the day. Gunnar snuck back in and kept the tempo high at the front but he was a lap down so he was tying to get a way to “unlap” himself…he failed but tried real hard. It came down to a 5 abreast sprint something I had no interests in playing in. So another good workout in the books. I can not wait to hit the dirt!!!

Betsy hand her hands full with two fast lady teammates from OH. They played those crazy reindeer games with her all day. She did great getting 4th in one super fast amazing sprint.

Uncle RobV. lent me his sweet ass Super-Six road bike for a few weeks so that I could be on a Cannondale during these pre-season road race leg and lung tune up. That thing is sweet, I need to get me one of them.

So one more weekend of road racing and then the dirt with the WVMBA opener the following weekend. Ah, then down to the Cohutta 100 in Tn. for the first NUE race. I am hoping to better my 3rd place in the SS series this season.

Well that is that. Some sore legs but I am safe and smiling spreading the Cannondale love.

Time for some mall laps with grandma. Spring Break in snowy NY!!!!!

PHOTO CREDIT: stolen from fans on FB, thanks

"May the wind be always at your back. May the sun shine warm upon your face" and may your wheels always find it safely back to the ground.
PEACE Chris

3 comments:

Ryan said...

Seeing as how Gunnar just took the official's clinic, he should know that he can't get back into a pack on a circuit race once he's lapped.

Shame shame!

gunnar said...

Yeah, yeah, yeah.
I wasn't lapped, I went back to the start/finish, grabbed our extra wheel and then got back in the group.
If it was a big race I wouldn't have.
It's Mingo. Good training.

Good thing Gary's not a dick.

Philmeaux said...

a lot of girl racers for some reason don't like it when Betsy shows up...

screw them

keep rocking it