As the world turns

There's a lot to be said for being positive and living in the moment, even if both sound rather cliché. Take a situation, for example, when you've just sailed home from the Londonderry track, down 93, across the LZ bridge, and through the tunnel all above the speed limit, only to come to a grinding halt in the middle of the dirty D, a victim of night-paving gridlock. You could choose to cry in your recovery drink, lamenting that it's already after 10 pm, you're tired, you're dirty, you drove two hours each way, you spent $25 on gas and another $20 on entry fees just for three short track races, you're going to miss out on sleep, and you're going to be driving at five miles per hour for the next thirty minutes. You could think that way. Some of my associates do. The older they get, the more grizzled they become, finding the darker side of any and all situations. Poor them. Mofos.

The alternative would be to think "hey, shit, it's summertime, woo-hoo! I can smell the salt air coming off the bay. This was an awesome night. I didn't crash in the sprint repechage after colliding with that dude who was coming underneath me, sending me unicycling up the banking in a nice nose wheelie when I sorta stopped pedaling. Good thing I got a sandwich off the grill before leaving the track or else I'd be hungry right now. Glad I'm telecommuting tomorrow, I can sleep in. Beastie Boys just came up on shuffle, crank it!"

By now you probably figured out I chose option B, and so ends our daily moment of uplifting inspirations. May the smiles be yours...

This was the first New England Track Championships in 18 years, according to Dick Ring. The last one was held at Thompson Speedway. I raced it back then, and I think I was the only alum who raced last night's event as well. And I found out I'm still pretty slow. I think I was the oldest person entered in the "A" field, but that's a poor excuse for also being the slowest, because Steve Gauthier is only two years younger than me and he took the overall bronze.

We'll focus on the kilo here. There were no heroics for me in the points race, other than taking off on the bell and getting the first sprint five laps in. I had a shot at the second one but got swarmed and was not a factor after that. I already told my match sprints story. I was in the repechage for a reason, and ended up last in that... Nothstein isn't hearing footsteps...

So back to the kilo. Since the track is only 318 meters, we do a bit more than three laps. I did not get to the track all that early, and didn't get in a great warmup. I rode some laps up high and got some windtrainer time in while the first riders went off, but wasn't able to do any hot laps down in the groove at all. Some guys had aero bikes, helmets, wheels etc, but I had none of that shit, just the Ghetto-Track. Truth be told, there were five guys who rode 1:16 something, but the fastest had no aero stuff either. Now I know 1:16 for a winning time is slow, but this ain't the ADT Center. The track isn't even that banked. 47 kph for those guys is not too shabby.

Dick was calling out the lap times. Since the first lap for each rider was really a lap and a quarter, the times were high. But we got to hear some indication of how we were doing. The best guys were getting their first split under 30 seconds, a few under 29. Under 23 was good for the second (i.e. one actual) lap. Then they would call out overall finish times as well as the final 200m split, which would be used for sprint seeding. The kilo baffled me. You have to start violently, but it's still possible (probable) that you're going to die, so you can't be an idiot. My first lap was 32 something, one of the slowest. Shit. So I bury it on the second lap, and it's a low 23. Then I don't feel smooth, I don't hold a good line (no practice) and I die, 1:21 something, I think maybe last in the "A" field. I rode a 56x17 gear, so the makes my average cadence ~106 rpm, and maybe 111 rpm over the final 200. That's slow by trackie standards.

Feltslave was one of the last starters, despite being one of the first to arrive. Actually he started once in the middle, but threw his chain and got a re-ride. His first lap was 30 point something. His second lap he looked unbelievable, spinning like a pro, smooth and fast. Not sure of the split. He died a bit at the end, and clocked a time nearly identical to mine. I think his final 200 was faster. But guess what? The knucklehead had his 42x16 winter training gear still on his bike! No wonder his spin looked so good. Yet he beat me. I ran the numbers, his average rpms must have been 135, and his final 200 nearly 140 rpm.

This morning I did some checking around the track forums and it sounds like "real" trackies run a gear the same or slightly larger than mine for the kilo (90-91 inches seems to be the consensus) despite going way faster. They are averaging around 125 rpms and hitting 130 at the end for sure. Typical track stuff. More for Willi to ruminate over. Thanks for reading, it was my pleasure being your ray of sunshine on this fine August day. Peace be with you motherfuckers!