Race morning came as painlessly as a 2:30am alarm clock can. I got up and found Team RamRod (Butch and Dave) firing up breakfast with our hosts. (Dave has a nice shot of this on his site. The site from which the photo of the Sam-and-I warrior was also unceremoniously stolen.) Omlettes and coffee were a great start to the day.
We rode to the start, gear bags in hand and ready to rock.
G-Ted had the back of his van loaded with gear (including his new On-One and several Monkeytrons) ready to lead the way to the course. There was a small group of riders gathered and when Mark moved the van into starting position, I rode right up behind him. Sam came up next to me and we chatted with Mark for a bit. Great guy, great attitude. He remembered that someone was hoping to not have Cindy Lauper stuck in their head and I beamed, "That's YOU!!" to Sam. Luckily for us both, Mark didn't sing "Girls Just Wanna Have Fun," instead he just smiled and laughed.
Right before we took off I keep trying to find MW but couldn't. Sam wasn't too worried which mellowed me out. We had a pretty simple plan in mind. When the van pulled off we would ride put it down. Not XC style, but at a pretty good clip and stick with it for as long as made sense. As the van rolled out, Sam and I stuck right behind it. In hindsight, I probably should have felt a little chilly at this point but didn't. We cruised at a bit under 15mph and that three miles of paved riding was probably about as fast as it got all day.
When the van pulled aside I flew out front with Sam and Matt Maxwell right there. After not too long, MW pulled up right in front of me and had me grinning from ear to ear as he was spinning it out like a madman. Sweet!! After about five miles, I started to feel a little sick, even though my heart rate was pretty low.
I had a sauna in my pants.
I started to drop back a bit, taste a little of the morning's breakfast while I wondered what in the fuck the deal was. At about that time, Paddy smoothly slid by on my right, then CreepyFriendly snaked his way through some traffic on my left. The Darkness came next and I was just getting pissed that I didn't feel right. "That's the fucking group," came out of my mouth to no one in particular. That group was about ten strong at that point and I would guess that was the heart of the eight that lead most of the race.
I floated back to Sam, who was wearing the same lower body setup I was and he said, "You wanna loose the pants??" Hell yes, was the answer. It was way to early in the race to stop but we had to do it. Taking those damn things off was like holding your breath for as long as you can and then gasping for air. We were instantly feeling better and Sam said it best: "Feeling better equals faster."
Thoughts of bridging up passed through my mind as we passed a couple of riders. We guessed we were floating around 15th place. Could have been more, could have been less. It's hard to say.
It was about this time we also realized that a quick check of the abacus showed we weren't going to make it to Algona in time.
The B roads are getting a ton of discussion and rightfully so. Had I not ridden last year, I would have been through a bit. The first B section came near the top of a climb so you couldn't really see it coming, particularly with the rain and slight headwind in your face.
"I'd like an order of grease soup, please." I just headed straight for the ditch, but it wasn't as if there was a clear definition between B road mud and corn field mud. Unable to ride, I broke into a "late for class" walk. Sam and I were moving pretty well and passed a guy or two. At one point, I looked back and Sam was fairly far back. The next thing I knew, he was behind me telling me my wheel had stopped moving. "You've got to clean it off and carry it, man." Great advice. I took a piece of a corn stalk, scraped my tires and drivetrain and picked the Niner up, resting the saddle on my shoulder. For us, I think that first B road was the worst, maybe not by condition, but because we didn't just go cross style and shoulder our bikes. There was a couple of times I jogged a bit, but then felt stupid because it's wasn't as if it mattered.
As we neared the first pass-through town, we saw a rider in full bright-yellow rain gear on a paved road pulling out and heading in. It occurred to me that while we may have been at the front of the race early, we could now be at the back simply due to people pulling out. It was a brutal kind of day.
Sam-and-I pushed on through the city and as we popped back on to gravel, saw Team RamRod in the back of the EuroVan, which is when Dave snapped the above picture. The cat behind us in the pick was rocking a geared Surly with tassles hanging from the top tube. He looked in very good order as he went by.
I had just stopped and put on a pair of snowboarding mittens to keep out the damp as my Nike mtb gloves were completely soaked through and my hands were getting cold. Of course, they weren't exactly made for 50 degrees and it wasn't long before I had little pools of sweat tickling the end of my finger tips.
At this point, the cue sheets were really not needed unless you were at a pass-through town. You could always make out tire tracks in the gravel and muck so I never bothered turning my cue sheets most of the time.
Sam-and-I were just riding and talking for a good deal of the time. Some of the time there really wasn't much to say, either. We just rode, continued to be wet and pressed on.
At some point, I got a "Hello," on my left and was surprised to see
Joe Partridge pulling up beside me. Joe and I chatted for a bit and he said he was already in a mode to just make it to Algona. I told him we thought the same and we worked together for a while. Joe was strong enough though that he needed to pressed on so he politely moved ahead.
A few minutes after that, I just started at my cyclometer and evaluated things. I was soaked through up to my shoulders. My core was warm, but it wouldn't be too long before that wasn't the case and that time would be far before Algona. Sam had a look on his face that said he'd about had enough, so we just talked about what we thought was prudent.
Neither of us wanted to push an unwinable situation, get sick and miss races further down the road, so we decided to pull the plug. We got another B road section under our belt as the rain came down a bit harder, then we road to a gas store in Pauleena and shut it down.
There were quite a few people already there and I was feeling like a grumpy old snob. We grabbed some coffee, sat and listened to the locals and waited for Team RamRod to arrive.
As a Charter Member of Team OverAnalysis, I then sat and continually brought up bits and pieces about the race. I wish I had done this... Remember when this happened...
A sauna in your pants isn't as cool as it sounds...
No waiting until next year... Bring on
Kanza.