Well, the swine flu finely hunted me down a week or two ago, and I was off the bike and legs for a good week. Not anything it was hyped up to be, but enough to not make me want to do much. Against Pa's better judgement, the infermed Payson and Flemings met up, as well as the healthy Pa and Mason Shea, to have a day of fun at Warda. Even though I had to carry my very favorite John Deere hanky in my back jersey pocket the whole ride (and yes I used it a lot), I repeatedly found myself going race pace. The trails are that rip worthy. I couldn't help it even with the flu. Anyway, after a few laps during which we traded each others bikes around at least once for each person, we rode to some good spots to do a bit of a "photo-shoot", it's nice that Ian is such a good photographer.
Here are some of them:
Some were more flattering than others...
Warda is one of the most flowy trails I've ridden, and even when you're sick, produces a very high number on the "rip-o-meter."
Out of the saddle when I shouldn't even be out of bed.
Eric and me lookin' so Pro.
The next day, I had taken a few steps back in terms of my recovery from my sickness, but it was WELL worth it. Can't wait until the race here, this course is a blast, and the second half may as well be a World Cup course strait out of Europe.
This past weekend was the BTU Power Pedal Mountain Biker race in the heart of Aggie land. I had decided to race singlespeed at this race to change things up a bit, and Joe Graff was kind enough to let me borrow his baby:
Jose Graff's boutique Vassago Jabberwocky 29er.
I actually grew quite comfortable with his famous "Jones H bar"
Pa decided that the forecast looked "not worth the trouble" and stayed home. Instead, Rick Wetherald, his puppy Primo and I squeezed into his Honda Civic and headed over Saturday morning. Rick, Primo and I had some great conversation, and as always Rick opened up his vast amount of knowledge to me, and he managed to stay semi-serious for about half the trip there, which was nice.
After a blast of a pre-ride with the Rick and the Fleming where we roosted the heck out of the tacky corners, it began to poor... all afternoon, all evening, all night, all morning. I went from being pleasantly surprised out how the course was more fun than I remembered, to a bored, "can't it be race time all ready?" sort of mood. The drifty corners were fun, but a muddy course could be fun too. Being rained on for hours was not fun, however. Mr. Bill of Team Solar Eclipse (Rick's team), was nice enough to let me hang out under the tent, and we proceeded to watch about 3.5 movies in less than 24 hours. While I was getting the brain sucked out of me, Rick was converting his bike to SS, to conserve his drivetrain from the "liquid sandpaper" conditions.
Both annoyed by the rain, Rick and I drove into College Station for a pre-race dinner. We enjoyed some good Tex-Mex, while thoroughly enjoying laughing at the Aggies and their various strangenesses. Highlights included their "Laboratory of Poultry Research" and various "Gigg'em whoop whoop gigg'em" jokes. Rick seems to have caught on quickly to Austin humor.
Rick's tent turned out to be a disguised swimming pool, and my pillow, sleeping bag and sleeping pad soon were soaked through. It didn't help that Primo was "enjoying" the water in the tent at 2 in the morning.
Race day came around, and Rick had pretty much no-one to race. Coming around after lap one, when asked how it was, he simply said: "This is retarded." Even through the mask of mud covering his face, you could tell he wasn't having a good time.
My race came up, and I was psyched. First singlespeed race, and I wanted to kill'em. It didn't happen.
50 feet from the start line my brakes completely went out. Later I found out that mechanical disc brakes simply don't work in mud, but at the time, I was a bit surprised when, on the first turn, I went careening off into the underbrush. Not having brakes on this course made for some interesting riding. I ended up using just about every idea I could come up with to slow down: Dragging foot on ground, grabbing trees and branches, jamming foot between frame and rear tire, and most of the time just slamming into trees. I eventually decided that I was already so muddy, battered and bruised that more wouldn't make much difference, and I might as well go kamikaze like. This entailed sort of sitting on the stem for max cornering traction, sticking one leg way out, and letting the big Nevegal (and trees and branches) keep me mostly on course.
Although frustrated with the fact that I never really got to race, it was a bit fun seeing what can be done mountain bike racing brakeless. Luckily for me, the last half mile or so was a bit uphill, and on the dike with no turns, so I could hammer, uninhibited. I caught two people in that last section, and somehow ended up third. Oh well, it was an adventure. A big congratulations to Eric, he was lucky enough to have his bike mostly work, and pulled out a final dash to the line, to once again crush the dreams of some 40 something. This is one of the preferred past times of us Junior racers.
Janice Fleming took this picture of Eric and I after the race. Quite a lot captured here:
In other news, the Dirt Derby has officially been rained out 4 weeks in a row.
I did my first real running workout last week, and have my first XC running meet this weekend in Georgetown. Have no clue what to expect, but still plan on winning.
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