Vinokurtov

Tales from Da (Mt.) Hood - Stage One

Cooper Spur Circuit Race:

This is the 70/7 stage, 70 miles and 7 thousand feet of up. Be forewarned, if little Greg Lemond Jr. is sitting on your lap reading neato stories about bike races, you might want to forego this and head back on over to Barney.com, Teletubbies, or whatever. This is going to get pretty R rated.

Getting ready I got to meet fellow BF’r CMH, I saw he finished, which in and of itself was an accomplishment.

So lucky me, on sign in I find out I got drawn in the wheel lottery for the support vehicle . Handing over the one non-carbon set of wheels I’ve brought, I look over at the Master’s 35 1/2/3 wheels and there isn’t a single wheel set worth less than $750. There’s even a set a Zipps. These are somebody’s throwaways. And when the three major teams come by warming up in formation I’m glad I’m ducking them for this race and sticking to the 3’s. Like they say in Swahili: When the elephants fight the mice get trampled. We’d pass a lot of flat mice as the day went on.

So rather than fight the elephants, I get to race against the kids. I’m one of two identifiable gray/no hairs. I look around and figure I’ve got CD’s and even some DVD’s that are older than some of these cherubs. Some of them ride like you’d expect a non-drinking age hormone factory to ride. It’s all I can do to keep from throwing elbows and telling them about what it was like before gravity.

I brought my two usual whiny companions to the race: my mind, "Richard" (we’ll call him "Dick" for short), and my body, "Guido".

(This is excluding the voices in my head BTW)

Guido’s not happy right away. He’s won two races this year, one on a cold rainy day thanks to some good work by the team, one on a cold windy day. Guido likes the cold. It’s almost 90 degrees when they send us off. He’s moaning about the cracked rib. And he’s really pi$$ed over the semi-fresh road rash from Dick not paying attention the other day.

Dick could give a flying. He’s a dick. Him and Guido have been in an abusive relationship for a long time. It's a sick, co-dependency.

The race is going along pretty fast, there’s some shelling, and Guido doesn’t make it through lap two before he starts getting all whiny and crampy:

Guido: I wanna go home and drink beer.

Dick: Shut up and pedal

Guido: It’s too hot to be out here, can’t we find some shade?

Dick: You wanna do intervals instead of go to Mexico when we get home?

So it goes till we hit the feed zone ½ way through the last lap.

Guido: I’m going home NOW!

He locks up the thighs. I’m not pedaling circles anymore. I’m not even pedaling squares. I’m pedaling freaking octagons. Blood, pus, and sweat covered UFC octagons. This might be it.

Dick pours a full bottle of ice cold water on Guido. Guido yelps but keeps going.

The speed gets jacked a bit more until there’s around 20 of us who make the turn up the final climb. I’m hanging at the front, answering attacks and accelerations. Dick has this down baby.

Guido quit at 500m.

Rolled across in 13th, down 22 seconds.

I gotta sit these two down and talk about the stage 2 TT. Dick was hoping that if Guido quit, he’d do it early in the race so we could all soft pedal the TT and maybe go for something in the road race or crit. Dick figures we’re still in the game.

I hate these guys BTW

BlessedHellride

LOL Thanks for the report.

bdcheung

NIce... anyone else smelling a new Oprah book-of-the-week?

obra3

Great job KB.

Evan my teamie was the one who took 2nd. The top 5 guys are REALLY fast. He'll be upgrading to 2 after this. He's actually the Pro Mtn. Biker.

Fish- green and white jersey is super strong and is upgrading to 2 after this race.

Ian- blue, white and gold jersey. Super strong junior racer. Likely 2 very soon.

Carson- another super strong/not really a junior anymore- 2 soon.

Carson, Ian and another kid are up and comers who we're looking as likely candidates to become pro.

Looks like the field got strung out.

mollusk

LOL!

Good luck the rest of the race.

Vinokurtov

Those guys were drillin it. I went a little too early and paid the price.

Just finished the TT. Dick beat the living bejeezuz out of Guido. I think there's charges being filed and a restraining order on the way.

hiromian

You two guys crack me up. You should get together and write a book. I absolutely love your reports. Thanks

obra3

Heard it was pretty dang windy today. It'll be interesting to see how the GC shakes out.

Yah, I got a report from yesterday and sounds like it strung out on the last climb.

TheKillerPenguin

Best. race reports. evar.