Providence and Gloucester

Gewilli and Solo going by the pit on lap two. I will write this up later. Photo courtesy of JLS

Well I guess I never even wrote up Gloucester. Here is the reader's digest version: Day 1, downhill start, 5th row middle on the grid, got to the right edge of the pavement, taking the inside high line onto the off-camber dirt. Well, apparently someone else had an idea of inside that was more inside than mine, and I got cleaned out as he squeezed by. Getting your bars walloped from behind just as you hit sloping gravel at speed buys you a quick ticket to the ground. Lucky for me none of the 40 guys bearing down from arears ran me over too badly, and I even got up and remounted before they all passed. But so much for a good start. I don't recall too many other details, other than making decent forward progress for a while and then tangling with my teammate the Cronoman, who races me harder than anyone else. That was dirt trip number two if you're keeping score. At the end I got caught by a back-from-an-earlier-tangle-with-somebody Helicopter Matt D. Going for the big ring after the last chicane I could not get the chain to jump up, so instead I executed plan B and paddled the rear changer to the 12. And of course the front then decided to go up to the 46. At the time I did not realize what had happened, and the gear was so big it felt like the rear wheel had popped out and was rubbing the chainstays. I could barely turn it and in the last hairpin on to the pavement I'm thinking "how did that happen with vertical dropouts?" which of course it did not, but that's the sort of thing that goes through my mind during moments like this. So I got nowhere near Matt in the sprint, and ended up 29th on the day, which really wasn't bad for two crashes and a 78 rider starting field. I was 4:10 down on the winner though, nothing to be proud of. Spent the rest of the day drinking beer with Timmy, Crono, some other mates, and of course Paul Nixon. Guess I remembered more than I thought. It's coming back to me now. At Gloucester, the beer tent (which was more of a corral to contain the area where beer sales were licensed for the day) is situated in such a way that all you could see was the run-up. If they really want more people to hang around, they should a) make it much bigger, and b) put it over on the edge of the hill where you can see everything, and c) put a big screen in there. Or something like that.

Day 2 at Gloucester at least we started uphill. I should have been in the third row, but they announced "six minutes to staging" and I went to do one little sprint and came back to find five rows already staged. It was a total shit show; they may as well have just done the traditional rush to the line. On the gun I just rolled up the inside, then did the "second sprint" to move up a few places entering the grass. In the video you can see I come through 41st, so not a horrible start by my standards. I thought I had a good ride, but I don't remember much at all at this point. In the end I was again 29th, after a mad sprint finish against Bill Thompson (Keltic) which I proudly took from the front by delaying as long as possible and then matching his jump, almost like I knew what I was doing. Same result by placing, but this time only 3:12 back from winner, which is more like it.

I did not race at Night Weasels. But just in case I did, for Providence I registered for the 35+ on Saturday, and the 45+ on Sunday. My logic was after a rough week at work and a late Wednesday of Weaseling, the extra hour on Saturday morning would come in handy. Plus the 35+ has the course all to themselves, so it's a more legit race, not to mention having Gewilli and Shah-Bow for company. In the end, I barely recognized anyone on the start list for the Weasel, and it was cold and rainy Wednesday night. I even got as far as working from the Framingham office in order to be closer to the event. At 5 pm however, sitting in my car in the parking garage, staring at the gas guage on "E" and thinking about driving home at midnight with a muddy bike and clothes, the Should I stay or should I go decision was to just drive home. Night Weasels was by young people for young people, and I'm old people. It was the correct decision...

Thursday I even found time to ride my road bike for 45 minutes, my first ride since Sunday. Friday was another busy day at work (new chain of command), but I forced myself onto the trainer for the first time this fall for "openers" which meant a little pedaling just to prevent rigor-mortis. Saturday I had some errands to run, which I did on the way to the race. Pressed for time, I checked out a lap of the course wearing a helmet and street clothes. Then the 45+ went off, leaving Timmy's trainer vacant, so I got kitted and warmed up, a little anyway. Somehow I got to start in the second row, right next to Markie Mac. My plan was to give it a try, but slide back to where I belonged early on, as the 35+ are much faster than the 45+ (even though the two out of the top three guys are over 45). Sure enough, by the time we hit the second turn, the only one behind me was Gewilli, and I think he passed me too. I was really trying to just follow Chabot, as he's pretty smooth and fast, but weak enough that I should be able to use the straights to close any gaps.

Some riders started falling by the wayside with bike issues early on. They should try my strategy of hardly ever letting tools and bikes get near each other. Up on the nasty top part of the course, Gewilli had the back wheel of his bike flopping back and forth like the tail of a beached mermaid. Mofo is not easy to follow. He got away by a few spots, but once we got back to the pavement, completing lap one, Shah-Bow had a line of about six guys behind him. As if he has a motor. Sensing the urgency of the situation, Willi blasted up the side to the aid of his team mate and hit the front. It was kind of touching and impressive in an elementary school play kind of way, seeing the kids work together in their little matching suits. But now I had six bodies between me and the only two guys I cared about racing against, so I was forced to leave the comfort of the pack and mover around everyone to get behind them before the grass. Which I did, and I think the pic above was snapped shortly after that. Not sure where Shah-Bow is, but I'm thinking he moved back in front. It was right after this that I made the "he's like a Subaru Justy" comment. That came to mind because it's a 3 cylinder, and he wasn't exactly hauling, but perhaps Fiat X1/9 would be more like it, good handling, no motor. Mostly I was just trying to heckle them in a calm voice to demonstrate contrast from Willi's gasping for air.

I believe we completed another lap without anyone really challenging our train. Then at the start of lap 3, Matt M came by us, apparently coming back from a tire issue. Knowing he was younger/stronger/faster than the clowns I was with, I jumped on his wheel, hoping for a tow to the promised land. We got through the 180 by the pits smooth and faster than I usually go, which of course took us to the next turn, a high-speed 45 degree off-camber left-hander around a tree, much faster than I was planning on taking it. Matt used up ALL the course, bobbling a bit on the exit as he flirted with the tape. Well, I was not so fortunate, and basically careened out wide, taking a stake with the front wheel just as it was sliding out from under me. Relatively heavy impact, but it was soft ground and I held the bars all the way down (that is how you keep your clavicle from getting busted). With Chabot on my wheel, I immediately went fetal and waited for the aftershock, but he did not hit me that hard. He was able to get up and take off fairly quickly. I lay there stunned for a second before getting to my feet and rolling away. Being pretty close to my limit just before the crash, I was now totally blown from the impact. And I had to stop and straighten my shifter, which Jerry must have landed on or something. Giving desperate chase, I was way into the red and tripped on the stairs, dropping the chain of the bike in the process. Everything going from bad to worse. It took a clumsy and slow half a lap for me to regain my composure, eventually passing a rider or two and getting maybe 15 seconds behind Gewilli. I got to two to go and heard them saying the leader had 1 to go while I was riding up the hill behind the pavilion. Taking a last minute run at Willi on the final lap was on my mind, even though it was a longshot. But then they pulled us entering the final straight! Huh? I was like WTF Kinnen, we're not lapped, and she says "80% rule." Well I'll be damned. To the uninitiated, this is a rule where if you're 80% of the leader's lap time behind, you're all done, even if you're not actually lapped yet. This was the first time I'd seen it used in an amateur event. Never had taken the time to understand it before, as it only applied to the pro race. So I looked it up, finding it contains an exception for when the leader is on his/her final lap, which in this case they were. So it would seem the rule was mis-applied in our case, as we were taking the bell at the point we got pulled from the race. The next time the leader crossed (about a minute later) his race was OVER AND WON, meaning of course we were not in any danger of being lapped, which is the reason for the last lap exception. Hopefully the officials learned something from our protest and see it our way in the future... At any rate, I still got in 45 minutes and five laps, which is all I would have got in the 45+ race had I done that, so with a race on Sunday coming up, I took this in stride. We stayed in the park and drank beer while watching the other races all afternoon. A true ritual.

Sunday I was in the 45+ where I belonged, which meant getting there a little earlier. The layout was another familiar Roger Williams Park course, with some sketchy narrow sections fenced off to facilitate using as much of the park as possible. Again I got to start in the second row, as my lonely two Verge series points earned me a call up. This time I was behind Carl Reglar (Danbury Audi). On the whistle he missed his pedal, but I managed to get to the left (inside) and make a fair sprint to the grass. After two turns and I'm looking around and the guys I'm with are all the people who've been finishing minutes ahead of me all year, so I guess this was a good start. Probably my best ever. Into the chicane I'm clusterphucking the inside line around the fencing and this dude from Beacon Cross takes exception, body checking me into the fence. Whatever, as I'm pulling a dick move, but if I don't do it someone else will. So on the next fence pole, I do it again, and this time the guy gets really pissed, slam-chopping me again. Kind of silly as I think it cost him time, so I guess he wanted to make a statement. Turns out he was the guy who won the 45+ race on Saturday. He rode off and I never saw him again. But I must have had a really great start to be up that far!

The turn where I bailed on Saturday was also part of the course on Sunday. During warmup, I'd had Saturday's 35+ winner, 51 year old national champ and ex-ISDT pro Kevin Hines give me a riding lesson. Thank you Kevin, this was a big help, and I got through there clean as a whistle every lap. I found myself in a train with Brian McGinnis (JRA), Dave Belknap (Cycle Lodge) and a few others. Like I said, guys who have been ten spots ahead of me all year. I struggled with the lines in a few sections but for the most part it was the same as last year so it was not too bad. I stayed with these guys for two laps. It looked like we were going to do six. One by one these guys trickled by me, and then going up the pavilion slog I got gapped off. Seems maybe my Saturday recovery strategy of nothing but beer between my pre-race meal and 6 pm fish tacos was catching up to me. Classic middle of the race bad patch, and the group rode away. Bob Bisson (Gearworks) and a few other guys came by from behind too. Prior to the slide, someone had said I was 18th. With about two to go I got a bit of a second wind, and by now I had the course figured out better. Soups was still in sight in front of me, but I had Keith Button and Andy Durham (both CCB) breathing down my neck. I realized that downshifting more was better, as I couldn't muscle the climbs as easily as on the first lap or two. With one to go my goal was to hold off Keith, so I started really sprinting out of every corner, then recovering going in to avoid mistakes. This worked out well, as did my 36x27 on the steep ride up, and I held him off, finishing 19th, just 3:01 down. I guess several guys ahead of me had issues and dropped out. My mate Billy C had crashed heavily behind me somewhere, cracking a rib or two. Wonder if it was the same one he broke when I fell on him in May 2009? Heal up dude.

After a cooldown ride we focused on draining the cooler. We had a number of special guests stop by our campsite. I promised someone, whose name I don't recall, that I would pimp Phit Pills on the blog, so there you go. Today I got to ride my road bike. And Gewilli gave me some sauce to eat, maybe tomorrow. Thanks for reading.