don't drop your weed in the taqueria ...

and expect to get it back.

that's just silly, yo.

but, sure enough ~ the guy sweeping the floor saw it and handed it back to the dude who's pocket it poofed out of.

funny santa cruz.

- - -

The San Luis Obispo crit was last Sunday and it was good clean fun. The fields were smaller, but stocked with good talent. In the geezer race, it was mostly a race to stay in front of uber-stallion Mark Noble. He didn't make the original break of 6 and though he tried to bridge across to it, it never happened. If you don't know who the Noble is ... you need to get in touch with your dirty side and hook up with the crossey-folks.

Not much to account for in the race except that the break eventually whittled down to a 2-up sprint between me and a Raisin team bloke. He was a good enough guy and we fought it out all honorable-like.

One thing that scented a wee-bit stinky was that on the final lap me and the Raisin rolled up on a couple of lapped riders. These two were well out of the placings and didn't have much of snot to gain in beating each other, let alone mixing in with our 2-up sprint for the race.

Well, in the final 400 meters me n' Raisin start to do our cat'n'mouse dance to contest the win. A two rider match sprint at the end of a long breakaway is soooo much a test of tactics as much as legs. And, I was straightup droolin' for it. I love that shit.

As we're positioning and feinting moves, one of the lapped guys bridges back up and starts to barge his way into our sprint.

You gotta be kidding me.

"Please," I say ~ "don't contest this sprint. We're sprinting for the win."

Jaysus ... he gets all uppity and shouts how he's not in our way. Well, of course, he's doin' nothing but getting in the way and effecting the outcome of the race - when he's a lap gawdamn down and dropped from the pack. What a complete wank. I move my bike over to hopefully at least block the dufus from distracting the guy I'm sprinting against. I ignore loudmouth mcLappy and me n' Raisin both accelerate at the same time and luckily the laptard gets dropped immediately and we have a drag race to the line. Fun.

After the line, I ride up to dufus to explain why I asked him to stay out of our sprint ... but he was immediately all defensive about how he deserved to be there and we had "5 lanes to sprint in" ... whatever that's supposed to mean.

jackass.

- - -

But, very UN-jackass like were the CVC boys in the prosey crit. Again, it was a small field ~ but aggressive. The winds picked up substantially for the race and turned into a hardman's event. Cool.

Ronnie Kier and Jon Eropkin were stellar in the race. They had a couple other teammates in the event Horton and Owen, I think ... but both had done races just prior and were (thankfully) a bit gassed. Gotta say, the CVC guys rode well ... all of them.

There was a break of 6 that ended up lapping the field. It was the two CVC studs, a Subaru mountain bikey wagnut, some no-name jersey dude who sandbagged the entire race and sprinted for the win (grrr...), old-man King from the geezer Raisin squad, and me.

I really like it when riders make the race, you dig? You know, take responsibility to do all the things that need to be done to make the race winning move, keep it rolling, chase down their share of attacks and launch their own. Honorable animators, if you know what I mean.

The CVC boys impressed me on Sunday because they chose to ride that way. They could have thrown in the towel a couple of times and didn't. They were aggressive and risked for the win. I like that. The dude who won it? He took soft pulls in the break and sat in during the fireworks of the final laps, waiting for others to bring back attacks. Yeah, he was the freshest for the sprint and won ... but, he risked losing to win, instead of risking to win and losing. There is a difference.

And you know what ... he'll never get away with that shit again in any race I'm at.