race-training = da' lovely

14 x 2min @ 60sec = hurlage

Long lunches are an essential daily nutrient.

~

The CCCX evil crew put on a sinful little circuit-uous race out at the Fort Ord demilitarized zone. The loop was around 3 miles and wonderfully challenging. There were kicker climbs to provide quadricep punishment (repeated-like) and perfectly civilized mid-60's temps on the F-Uheit scale.

It was a little packet of sweetness tied up in a bow.

The Geezers race went first and the unSafeWay boys went to work. After a lap of attackey-counter-attackey, a wee group of 4 got away. It was Reedimus Maximus and Kyle Glare-um with me for the MIB vs a lone rider from San Jose. It was a guy I'd never seen before but became EXTREMELY impressed with by the end of the race. What a class rider.

His name is Chris Wire and apparently he rode the road back in the (not so distant) day with Caldwellian and other local legends. Very, very cool cat.

Anyway, our Geezer-break went on the second circuit and we averaged very fast and consistent lap times. Kyle was especially yummy as he bridged across to the break as it was forming ... in what I must call a pure act of studliness. We were moving along pretty good when i looked back to see that brother coming across.

Man-size.

Since the San Jose rider was so class and hip, we all rotated through until the final half-lap. Reed, Kyle and I started hitting him with the attack/counter-attack mambo, but this dude stuck like the glue. After the 3rd attack I was starting to really like this guy. After he covered the 5th attack, I just started to cry with joy. I hope this brudda rides every single race - cause he's got that kind of kick-ass in his attitude.

Our little group came to the final turn on the course and had about a 350 meter uphill sprint to the line. San Jose Chris jumped through the corner and I will go ahead and ask everyone to apply a duplicate "studliness" descriptor to this act, as well.

What bravery.

I hopped on his wheel and had to come around him in the final 50 meters for the win. In a 3 against 1 scenario - he nailed a 2nd. That's about as good as you can get. I was soooo impressed. AND, he was all nicey-nicey and cracked a couple jokes with us afterwards. Pure class.

Back in the pack - the Pasconator cleaned up for 5th with an easy sprint effort. We were happy as TRex also finished up in the top 7. Yay for the unSafeWay boys.

After the Geezers race, most of us hung out for the youngin's event. Same bit of early shenanigans occured with an eventual break of 5 getting away. Taylor Tolleson was there again with Pat "what's that smell?" Briggs riding a bit friendly with him. There was also a very cool guy from the la' Gatos named Sam Pickman, and this total hammer-head toughie, John "cadence of 5" Gill.

We road along fairly well ... but, this move definitely didn't have the cohesion of the Geezers break - so our lap times jumped around a bit. Overall, it was a good training day, but it we could have been a bit faster if we weren't all kind of interested in winning the race. I mean, Keith and Rod had put together some cash for the top-3. Might as well take the mana from heaven, eh?

And so, in the final couple of laps I put in a bunch of digs to try and solo it to the line, but them youngin's were too feisty. Taylor made an excellent counter off of Briggs chasing me down with a K to go. I saw the move and gave the little super-model a thumbs up of approval. Briggs didn't waste any time on my wheel and jumped me, too. Ah well. We three time trialed each other for the final kilometer and would finish in that order.

Endgame? ~ a good day of race-training. No real poetic license given to this account - just thought I'd spread the narrative a bit to those interested.

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bike racing = passion.