creepyfriendly

Dirt bike race #2.

A premature AM forces the muscles to twitch. Clearing the sleep from my eyes I poor my second cup of coffee. It's still dark out as I apply an extra thumb of chamois creme for good measure. As I swing my leg over the 55:20 and head East I remind myself that second street isn't a terrible place to be.

The legendary Gooooooooooo! sounds and my 36:17 along with 50 of the midwest's finest are off. The long gravel lead out files into place as we jostle for the front group. I chose a tempo that felt right for our 30ish mile excursion before finding myself on the front. The deeper we got the narrower we grew. Four miles in and we were down to three including myself, BRIAN, and MARKO despite a few early race mishaps. Nearing the end of lap one our gap grew to over two minutes and would make it to five by the finish. 

Entering lap two we took the necessary feeds and sifted into recovery pace. I switched grooves on the double track while glancing back but they followed suit. No one seemed interested in sharing the work load so I went back at it for the remainder of the race. 

Entering lap three I was feeling comfortable as I let the upper body soak the undulating single track before hearing a duuuunk, "fuck" as Marko popped his balloon. For a brief moment I snapped out of the single track daze in order to help him before realizing Matter was on my wheel. Race on! As the rain started I was cautious in the turns and fast on the straights. My motive was absent as Brian stuck to my wheel like glue as our final lap came to a close. Exiting the series of bridges I stomped on it pretty hard before weaving through the final speedway towards the finish. My eye sight was blurry and my back numb when I heard the final click as Brian big ringed me in the final 15 meters of the course. Second place in as many try's for a grand total of 1 sec lost between both. That's racing as the old man's words still ring the short term, "you have to loose the little ones to win the big ones." Still not sure what that means so I'll be sticking to throw down or go down. In this case go down.

PS. still searching for a reason to take the day off.

Photos: ©BUBBA

CFL #76849

Give yourself a reason to take a day off.

Primed.

I managed not to smash my loaf of bread all while beating mother nature at her own game.

Mother nature: 0 Me: 1

More later.

On Friday I rode the long tail home. The guilt of clutter in my personal space equaled 30lbs. By Saturday morning the metal was replaced by vegetables as Amanda and I made our way around capital square.

Midday I swapped bikes as Amanda went to work. I had 4.5 hours. It took just over 5. MMR boasts 108 miles. I'm smashed and still getting the evil eye.

CFL #58490

You have to truly love what you do before you're successful at it.

Dirt bike race #1.

Prelude:

Race: IOLA Bump & Jump

Bike: Gary Fisher FERROUS 17.5

Weight: 22.1lbs

Gear: 36:19/54.9inches/180mm crank arms

Tires: Bontrager XR 1 Team Issue 1.9

Pressure: 22 rear/26 front

My Iola race history:

02: 1st Sport

03: DNF Elite

04: 4th "

05: 5th "

06: N/R

07: 3rd/2nd

08: N/R

09: 2nd

With a large crowd on and off the course the dogs were let loose. Goooooooooo! An Adrenalin filled crew shot past as we scaled the first incline. With everyone looking to flex their guns through the bowl I roosted on pace. It wasn't long before the hot lap champs filtered off and the strong hold formed. We were short a couple as B. MATTER, TRISTAN, and PHILLIPS played hooky. Regardless the top 5 were wittled down by lap 1 as I took my first pull. I was tired which resulted in a couple short efforts before resorting back to rank. NATHAN took a solid pull before popping off the back which left us three deep with TJ chasing. 

By lap three we started lapping riders or was it lap two? It gets a little hairy at this point. The normal cat and mouse shenanigans begins as we try to lose each other in between lapped traffic and the pain cave.

As the screws turned in the final miles of lap four we lost Eppen. It appeared that we were getting faster lap by lap according to sideline watches and shouts. I was feeling it... early season fatigue as MARKO appeared to be effortless through every portion of the course. 

As our final lap came to a close I trailed by half a wheel. The openings were full bore as we hit the final stretch of single track before the finish. The short spurt before the line wasn't enough to get that bugger as I finished .2 down in second place. I had a moment of displacement as I turned and congratulated him before realizing how proud I was. Here's to another year of beating the piss out of each other.

Epilogue:

I leave you with with an e-mail I received from Eppen the day after the race who by the way has never won a WORS race.

Jesse,

Some history since you keep kicking my ass.

11 years of racing WORS

36 races all in the top 10

31 in the top 5

5- fifth places

11- fourth places

7- third places

8- second places!

Look out! I'm coming for that top podium spot! Tell Mark I'm coming for him!

Whimsy.

Random ride #5579

TALIESIN terrain.

Uncharted #2

The day came with an overcast and stiff gusts. I rode North until my mind went numb and then I rode some more. Once I crossed East of the Mississippi I had my pick of gravel in every direction. I chose South as I kept the river and stacks in my pocket. New territory is better than no territory.

Uncharted.

I've turned myself inside out 4 of the last 5 days. I'm sure there's a term for this... for now, it's unexplored territory or at least it was.