Both hands on the wheel. 10 and 2. Especially in the rain.

Monday, March 16, 2009

River Falls Road Race: by the numbers

Greenville: the land of the free lap in a road race...I should've taken one, but that would've meant that I would have to get back in the race. No thanks. I'll take a DNF, and my buddy Mainstay will as well. Two DNF's please, and thank you. The race report is pretty simple. On the 4th lap, The Mainstay came off on the climb. I made the front group over the climb, got cocky, and got ridden straight the fuck off the wheel in front of me on a flat section on the backside. Not gapped off. I didn't have to hit the brakes because a couple idiots touched wheels. No one crashed. No nasty crosswinds. I wasn't eating, and there were no ill-timed attacks. I couldn't hold a wheel on a flat section of road. Done. In my opinion, they were just going way too fast. The front of that race appeared to be in a BIG hurry. My preparation was spot on, so I'm not really sure where it all went wrong. I got my traditional pre race cinnamon twists from Einstein's and everything. Two of them. That obviously didn't work, so now I'm starting to think I should've trained this winter.

Number of miles driven: 350
Number of miles in the race: 66
Number of miles raced: 25
Hours in the car: 6
Hours on the bike: 1
Average watts: pretty low (I got droppped)
Average watts of the Mainstay: pretty low (he got dropped)
Average watts of the winner: pretty high (he won)
Number of beers in the cooler: 12
Number of beers consumed before hitting the GA state line: 12
Number of stops to replenish supply: 1
Number of beers purchased: 2
Number of ounces in each beer: 24 (2- 24 oz beers for $2.22- HTFU!)

So I decided it was time to start training seriously again. So I rode 3.5 hrs on Tuesday....rode all the way from Atlanta to the Tuesday night crit. I figure that'll get me through July-ish.

Friday, March 13, 2009

Towel Boy: En Fuego

It's that time of year again...the only event bigger than the T500 has officially kicked off for 2009. The Tuesday night crit is here...and apparently one man listened to the annual "win or you're fired" speech. Towel Boy. Sure, he showed up halfway through the ride, but he was doing repeats at the mountain beforehand. Sure we had 8 guys. And of course, most of the field was straight Cat 6 material. ProTour kits? Yep. Mismatched? Sure, sometimes. Primal Wear? Of course. Plenty of it. But fuck it...Towel Boy laid down the law. After numerous attempts to get up the road and stay there, Towel Boy soon learned that a sprint was simply unavoidable. Way too much horsepower in the field behind for anything to stick. And by horsepower, I do mean Primal Wear. So at 500 meters, he found a largeish Mapei/Liquigas composite rider to tuck in behind. And at one hundred meters...he launched his sprint like a bat out of hell. He came around one rider and slayed two ProTour teams at the same time! That's how Towel Boy does it on Tuesdays. HTFU.