I’ve never been particularly happy with my racing ability. Don’t get me wrong—there are plenty of riders worse riders out there, and I love battling for the occasional Cat 3 podium—but it would be nice if my legs could keep up with my mouth. As Alan Atwood put it while announcing one of my better ‘cross results this season, “he talks pretty good between races”.
As a result, I seek other ways to be awesome; the photos set above captures just such an attempt. At Ice Weasels, there was a nominal fifteen-minute gap between the Cat 3 and Open Singlespeed fields; I was determined to race them both on the same bike.
With Jon Shea lending a spare set of hands and Ryan Kelly taking photos and feeding me donuts, I managed to remove the derailleur, shift cables, and bosses, change the bars and rear wheel, throw on a new chain, and adjust the rear brake, with just enough time left over to claim my second-row seed at staging.
Jon and Ryan agreed the odds of catastrophic mechanical failure were about 50/50, but the bike held up. Only a freak puncture with 5 laps to go (in conditions that could best be described as “unflattable”) foiled my efforts.
But the turn-around inspired me to start doing race reports again this season—I’ll just keep them off the main index page, to avoid distracting the uninterested. Because in 2010, Cyclocosm is going to be all about awesome.
this reminds me of an old maori saying…
rere aianei tetahi ko tonu a runga whiwhi aianei ta.
race at, what you can win at, bro.
I recently won ‘the turkey trot’ an orienteering event (3rd grade too) I bet my 11 year old daughter by 1hr 15, and 15 other adult runners, by walking the course over 4 co-joined maps. It was then I coined the above phrase.