Big Tex

First racing blog from the great state of Texas.  We've been here three months now and everything is going well. It's awesome. Jenny and Tyler are digging Texas. I'm digging it. So let's get the bike racing on, right?!

It's been slow getting some training going.  I crashed my mountain bike real hard and that set me back a little. It was dumb. I was having fun ripping this awesome local trail and not thinking about how I didn't know shit about this trail, about what was coming next. All healed now.  Back at it.

Northshore Trail

Road riding is huge here and I've jumped on some great rides.  One of the regular fast riders introduced me to a guy named Bobby.  "Joe this is Bobby.  You'll want to know Bobby if you're racing cross in North Texas."  Bobby is a 40+ masters guy with a long black beard.  He has an easy Texas drawl like maybe he's been here all his life.  We talked about the cross scene, the training options, what cross racing is like in the east.  He's a cool dude, super modest. And fast. Turns out Bobby is ridiculous fast. Bobby rode away with the lead groups and landed on the masters podium both days this weekend. And then jumped in the Open 1/2/3 race just for kick and pulled off top tens. I'll be paying attention to Bobby.

Bobby is Texas Cross.

So on with the racing.  Wednesday was the season opener of the Wednesday Night CX under the lights in Irving.  Very cool setup but I was sidelined early.  I have mild asthma "attacks" sometimes - usually exercise induced - and on Wednesday I forgot my inhaler.  So after the 20 minute short track event I was shattered and wheezing and had to bail on the 40 minute main event.  I will report on WNCX in a few weeks after I try again.  I had forgotten what a shock to the system CX racing is.  Damn I miss those DCCoD and Reuther practices!

On Saturday I showed up for the season opener - a double race weekend for the North Texas Cyclocross Series (NTXCX) - "Day 1 & 2: The Return of Levee Cross".  It was at the same venue as the Wednesday Night CX - Sam Houston Trail Park. The course was rad. The old MAC and PACX crew would approve. The promoter seems to give a shit and knows how to lay out a course. The race was really well done from registration to music, announcing and the whole thing. Attendance was more PACX than MAC size but not bad. The masters field was a little light, I think 15 on Day one and maybe 22 or 25 on the second.  The B race had 40-50 and the C race even more...so typical stuff we see in the east, guys don't want to move up.  But a good turn out and plenty of fast guys and girls.

While I was warming up on Saturday morning I saw Paul Bonds.  I did a double take.  Paul is from Oklahoma - just a couple hours north of Dallas - and he travels around racing some of the well attended Masters CX races.  I met Paul in 2014 at Nittany. Paul and Nick slugged it out that year in 2014. Paul won one of the Nittany races and Nick won the other. I talked too Nick and Paul after that race in 2014 and the guy was super nice. Just liked to race and talk racing. Paul didn't remember me but we talked about racing and he asked about Nick and Jenn and the Sears family and the whole thing settled me right down and I felt at home. Plus I was racing in the same race as Paul so I figured no pressure, Paul is going to be like a lion playing with his food in this little field. The following year at the 2015 Nittany race I remember being somewhere halfway across the course and hearing the announcer call Paul's name during podiums, "And your winner of the 35+ field....Big Tex....Paul Bonds!"

Big Tex

For the Satruday race I felt good and raced well with the legs I had.  My lap times trailed off more than I would have liked near the end but hey, I showed up to my first race in Texas and pulled off a solid 4th place with some pretty fast guys. Okay, so third place was two and half minutes ahead of me but I was the leader of the mid-pack masters racers on Saturday and I was super stoked with that result. Paul Bonds won and my new friend Bobby was on the third step. The dude is fast. Gotta watch him. If I can get in that zip code by end of season then I'll be getting somewhere.

I picked up a matching Boone for a B bike.
So pro.  Love these bikes!

On Sunday a deeper field showed up. Paul was not there but a few other roadie/ringer types showed up that weren't there on Saturday. I could tell from the chatter who had what. It was a stronger field overall. Sunday was also cool because they did call-ups based on first day results and since two of the top four didn't show up I was second on the call-up.  "Okay, first....Bobby, get up here."  (Mild chatter from the field, "yeah Bobby", "nice ride yesterday Bobby").  "And second...uh...Joe...uh Both-well?  Is there a Joe?"

Love it.  Just like first day of school.

I had a decent start and for a half a lap I thought maybe 4th position might be my spot again but near the end of the first lap I was coming detached from the lead three and feeling some heat on my wheel. I'm no dummy, let 'em go and jump on the wheel if you can. That worked for a while but then I was getting detached from 4th.  More noise from behind, too much gap to 4th, let him go and get on the wheel.  Again that worked for awhile but by the middle of the second lap I was gapped alone in 6th place. 7th place caught me and went by and we had a solid race for a couple laps before he seemed to blow up. I went by and built a 20 second gap over the next couple laps and that would hold to the end. 6th place. So again I raced well with the legs I had. I was pretty happy with the weekend. Might just be a fun season in Big Tex!

The Force Awakens

With CX Nats out of the picture I took two and a half weeks off the bike after the last cross race. I could have gone for more rest but some good rides were shaping up for New Years Day and beyond. Nice chill rides. Well, not all chill. On Friday I jumped on the Amnesty/Memorial ride that Wiser posted up. My body was still totally shut down in full rest mode so I had to really force myself to get up and get out the door. I'm really glad I made it - lots of good people on the ride. I told Chappy this was the first social pace ride I had been on in almost a year. Chap said, "It feels good, right?" Yep. It sure did.

Amnesty/Dan Ryan Memorial Ride on New Years Day. 57 strong! Thanks to Mark Wise for posting up the invite on this one!

Dave and Chappy on the Memorial Ride. Always good to ride with these guys.

Glenn Turner posted up a mountain bike ride for Saturday. I was planning to resume my intensive resting program but the ride the day before had stirred something in me...I sensed a disturbance in the lazy. I added a few others to Glenn's invite and it was on. We kind of high jacked Glenn's ride and the pace was a lot tougher than I was thinking about when I loaded up the single speed that morning. I won't name any names but the initials for the instigators were Buddy, Jay and Ryan. I'm kidding of course...it was one of those really memorable super fun rides.

Awesome crew! Contrary to popular reports the trails were fine. A little slick here and there but mostly great and mild temps. Left to right: Buddy, Paul, Matt, Ryan, Mark, Jay, Rebecca, Glenn, Bob and Dennis. Thanks to Glenn for throwing out the invite!

Jay let me know about a mid-day Fair Hill ride with the Chuckster on Sunday. The disturbance in the lazy dark side was getting stronger...the force was awakening. I was totally stoked for this ride. Chuck was tinkering with a tripod-foot-down rear-wheel-power-slide-through-fast-corners thing. The leafy trails made it pretty sketchy.
Chuck said, "You know like Sagan does."
"Wait, on a road bike?" Jay said skeptically.
I was just enjoying the show. It was like the Evel Knievel documentary I watched the night before. Like something bad was about to happen sooner or later. Except Chuck is a really nice guy. Evel is a douche.

Jay didn't get the memo about the sexy gray beard stubble look.

At one point we ran up on a couple guys with a mechanical. One of them had broken his derailleur hanger. They were about as far from their parking lot as you could get and had no tools. Jay, Chuck and I took over and converted the bike to a single speed in about 5 minutes. There was something really amusing yet really efficient about the three of us working together. I hope our handy work got them back. I have a feeling it did.

Glove in my teeth. Wrong gear. Steep hill. One hand. Yeah...that picture.

I posted up on Facebook earlier in the week about Tyler and I going to see The Force Awakens. We had watched all six of the Prologue and original movies in story-chronology order during the Christmas break.  I'm not a serious Star Wars fan but the original 1977 Star Wars is a great movie and The Empire Strikes Back almost as good and Return of the Jedi pretty good except for that Ewok thing. But I was not a fan of the Prologue Trilogy. Anyway, no spoilers here...the Force Awakens is a really great movie. Well done in almost every way. It's the movie the last three should have been.

Finally, after a week of watching all the Star Wars movies...the main attraction!

If you ever get sick of your bike, take a break. Rest up. Leave the bike hanging in the garage all disheveled and dirty with a flat tire from the last cross race of the year. When you're rested and ready...the force will awaken and you will love your bike again. Peace all!

2015 Radness in Review

I may have overcooked myself a little - I haven't ridden a bike since I rolled across the lot to pack up my gear after Limestone at the Kiln on December 13th. It was an awesome weekend of racing with Solstice Cross the day before. There are killer race reports somewhere in those two days but they'll never get written. I woke up the next morning with no interest in riding my bikes or writing about them. So I guess that's what it takes to burn myself out...eleven and a half months of training and racing. I'm out for CX Nats next week and I don't mind - I'm done for the year and I'm full up on racing. 

My blogs and race reports are usually pretty long. To quote Travis Harnish, "I think blog is misleading. It should be renamed Tales of Radness: A Compilation of Short Stories by Joe Bothell." So with that in mind I am going with photos and captions for the 2015 Radness in Review. Still plenty long but more pictures, less words! Happy New Year everyone!

Some of us escaped the cold  in February for a trip to Arizona to ride mountain bikes. Second year for this trip. Yeah...Sedona!

Bike Line bad asses in the A-Z. KOMs were taken.

Unless you are Cimini, Arensberg or Neugebauer you should probably never call your rides epic. But we had a couple epic rides including the Pickett Post Trail, 5 hours, 5700' of climbing.

AZ roomies Shindler and Pasley. Tober MIA that day.

Back on the east coast I was hitting the weekend road rides as often as possible. These rides are really hard. Chuck and Blair taught me how to paceline one day. Pacelining with Chuck and Blair hurts. A lot.

Cowboys from Hell
In April I finally got to put the winter training to the test. Ben, Paul and I won the 13-hour Baker's Dozen 3-man "Geezer" class. Hoping to defend in 2016.

Finally, the first MASS race of the year at Fair Hill.  I came out swinging with the hole shot.

Got the win that day.  I had never won any kind of individual event in any category. Coach Nick was waiting at the line and snapped this pic. I can't begin to describe how stoked we both were after 4 months of hard training. 

French Creek was up next. I blew apart after one lap chasing Chappy.

And then Greenbrier. Werner keeping the heat on...

Found my way to the top step one more time at Ramsey's Revenge. A non-MASS race but stacked all the same. Chap would own me for the rest of the season... he was training through on this weekend so I got away with one.

I had been taking classes at Drexel for several years...  picking up where I left off many years before. I wrapped up the B.S. in March and this showed up in the mail during the summer. Whew. Felt better than winning a race!

Chappy wins the MASS CAT 1 40-49 series! I hung on for second. Congrats to Nick Morell for a great season as well.





Racing with Tyler. Family vacation in OC Maryland between races...

And just like that it was cross season. Cross clinic at Granogue...

Talking it over with Coach Nick at first cross race of the year: Cross of the Corn.

Granogue...broke my chain second lap and called it a day but I believe this day may have been my top form all year. So it goes...

Skipped HPCX and West Chester #1 for a weekend in NYC with Jenny.  It has been noted that I am batting way over my average in the beautiful wife department. So true...

Swashbuckler. My first top five in a cross race. A good day for sure.

West Chester is much closer to work for me so I started hitting Rustin for cross practice this year (instead of Skyline with the Newark DCCoD crew).  This was Black Friday cross... Pope Cross was another good one at West Chester.  Thanks to Bob Reuther for hosting all the practice sessions!

A rare moment leading Kelly Cline. I finished one spot behind KC four or five times this year and never in front. I was hoping for a top ten in a MAC race this year but it was not to be. Still a super solid year. I was in the mix with some fast guys!

After Limestone, racers old and new took a few laps around the pump track. I overheard Selene Yeager laughing about the 68mm carbon rims on my B bike as I rolled off the track.

A big group of us masters racers wound up gathering around DLowe's car. Werner had this holster belt full of minis and we all toasted the year and downed a whiskey shot. I snapped a pic of Werner but all I got was my thumb. If anyone has a pic of Werner's shot-slinger belt...post it up!

The  Masters 45+ crew at Limestone. Good group. Fun CX year.

Spent the last couple weeks of the year hanging with this dude. Good kid! Peace all...

Daydreamer

It was like one of those dreams where everything seems real but you know its not because a few things are off.  I was on my mountain bike suffering up that nasty steep climb at Greenbrier State Park. The one that goes on forever. My legs are cranking, burning. Monotonous. Mechanical. Just doing their job. I glance up the hill. Chappy. I can't see his face but for a moment an image of Chappy grimacing flashes in my head. Chappy suffers with the best. I steal a look behind. Thayer. Grimacing. Eyes back to my front wheel, moving towards me then away, and towards me again as my head bobs with my pedal strokes. I never raced Chappy at Greenbrier. Or Thayer. I look up the hill again, it's not Chappy anymore, it's Stevens. And now we are on a different trail - still Greenbrier but now its the opening climb. Werner is pulling alongside me, we are chasing Stevens. I push harder and Werner slips back out of view. I hear a voice but it's not Werner or Stevens. "Hey man." I look back but there is only Werner. He's grimacing like Chap. Again, "Hey man." I know that voice...but can't make the connection...

Four weeks ago we raced Fair Hill Cross and earlier in that week I learned that my job was moving west to Dallas - with our without me. My initial thought was, "Yeah, no way. I live here. In the Northeast. I guess I'll be finding a new job." Throughout the week I chewed on it a bit and there were a lot of reasons moving west made sense - a truly rare career opportunity and it mostly works for Jenny and Tyler's situations. So by the end of the week we had already decided that moving was a likely outcome. For the rest of the week my mind was busy with the business side...family...the personal finances. I hadn't thought too much about racing bikes. On the short ride to Fair Hill it all started sinking in. The biking community around here is just awesome. Visitors tell us so but we don't need them to - we know. Before the Fair Hill race the whole 45+ crew was riding in long circles in this narrow piece of field near the staging. Keeping the legs warm, waiting for the starter to show up, waiting to get things started. Single file, two wide, three wide...guys just riding around, chatting it up, keeping nerves calm and just catching up. I jumped around...two groups forward...fall back three.

"Dr. Barry...take it easy on us man." 

"Feather-man...morning sir...Kelly, how you feeling buddy?"

"Deluxx posse...looking good boys."

"Stevens you ready for this shit?"

"Werner...how did Emma do?"

"Marty...Ray...'sup fellas..."

And so on. So many good guys. Most were probably taking this scene for granted - not thinking much about it. Obviously not looking at it through my lens but they know it's some good shit we have here. They all know.

This past week was another double racing radness weekend and Saturday took me to Wrightsville, PA for Rivertown Cross. The venue is top notch. A public park with little short hilly sections and a single-track power straight section racing right along the Susquehanna River. There may be some equal venues but certainly none better on our MAC and PACX circuit. The course raced well but it needs a little love. A little more thought here and there. Some wider lanes for sure. Two years racing cross and suddenly I'm an expert right?

Quality venue.

Rivertown reflections.

I had a front row start and everything went well. Whistle, smash, click, smash, smash.  Perfect. I fell in fourth wheel behind Kelly, Reuther and Barry. Kelly was leading and laying down a blistering pace that I wasn't able to hold and a gap formed between me and the lead group. I looked back a few times and it didn't look like I was holding anyone back, but after a few minutes I heard someone bearing down on me. Blair didn't preregister so he had started from the last row and it didn't take him long to work his way through. I moved over and let him by and now I was riding in 5th place. I stayed on Blair's wheel and we were starting to close the gap on the lead group as we finished the first lap. A minute later I remember thinking "Blair's pace doesn't seem hard enough" and I found out why - Blair's front tire was going flat.  So I was back up to 4th place with a slight gap back to 5th and the front group was way off. I was in no-man's land. DLowe and Miesemer were coming with Lux right behind. DLowe caught me and burned my wheel for most of the 4th lap and he just about pulled along side me on the log over. There was a line I was taking where you could stay on the bike and squeak between the log and the stake instead of dismounting - Dave's dismount proved faster but I guess he botched his remount and I pulled away.  Then he went down a minute later in the off camber starting the last lap. Hated to see that - Dave was killing it and I would have preferred to have raced it out - it would have been a tough last lap. Of course it was tough enough anyway - for the last lap Miesemer was pretty much right on me and Lux close behind but both needing another lap to finish the job - so I was able to hold on to 4th. I didn't expect to have that good of a ride but more on that later.

Sunday was West Chester Cross and I was hoping to finally hit top form and place well in a race with a lot of big guns. So far this year a single digit finish in a super stacked field had eluded me and West Chester would be more of the same. The course was slick and muddy after an overnight freeze and thaw. All year I had been putting off setting up a mud tire for that special occasion and now it was here and the Clement MPXs were not working. And I could probably have worked with the poor handling but my legs weren't working so good either. Like Saturday, I started great and went into the course 4th or 5th but right away I knew something was off.  Just not enough snap out of the turns and not enough power on the straights. I don't remember the exact order - I think Featherman went by me first, then Marty and Ray. And on the second lap I went backwards a few more spots. By that time I had slipped out 5 or 6 times trying to find a line with my slippery tires. With a lap and a half to go Lux caught me and went around. He was driving his bike so much better than me but I couldn't make his lines work for my tires any better than my own. Still, I hung on to Lux for the whole last lap - right on his wheel at times, dangling off at others. And the whole time DLowe was coming - inching closer every time I stole a glance until he was just a few bike lengths off. But in the final bit, coming down onto the soccer field, I had pulled back up and got a good run...made a move...made it stick. 11th place. Earlier in the year I think I would have screwed that up...tried to go to early or not timed it right. I was pretty stoked to work that out.  West Chester is a great race. I understand that piece of ground is being sold...that if the race is at Rustin High next year it will be a different course. Too bad...hopefully the new West Chester Cross will be just as rad.

Lucky fours? Meh...

What exactly happened in my life that I ended up
wearing a pink skin suit and euro glasses?
Photo: Dennis Smith

"Hey man, are you alright?" I knew that voice. Fatmarc. "You don't look so good."
I snapped out of my daydream and opened my eyes. I was on the trainer in the parking lot at Rivertown. Warming up for the 45+ race. Hunched over, head hanging down almost hitting the stem...spinning an easy gear. On autopilot, just daydreaming about racing all my racing friends. And about not racing all my racing racing friends any more. I laughed a nervous laugh, "Yeah man I'm fine. Just daydreaming. Is it bad if I feel like I could crawl into my car and just take a nap?"
"It probably means you'll win the race." We laughed. 

"Yeah I doubt that but seriously man, thanks for looking out for me."
"Anytime. You were looking pretty rough man. I didn't know if maybe I should call an ambulance."
I laughed again, "Yeah I'm good man. I was just really....daydreaming...let's go do this shit..."

Smooth

I was standing in line at the drug store last week and Smooth by Santana came on over the muzak system.  Those little guitar riffs were stuck in my head all week.  I'm a guitar player so I probably hear that song a little differently.  Santana is a bad dude.  Very smooth.  Santana and I both play PRS guitars. Coincidence? Yeah, probably....

Guess I need to figure out how to post 

music clips without stupid YouTube ads.

With no races planned for two weekends it was a good time for a rest week. I generally do exactly what my coach tells me. The only exception being rest weeks when I'm supposed to take it easy but end up on a fun ride that turns into a knife fight. Knife fights are not easy. I made it all the way to Sunday before screwing up my training plan this week.

On Saturday I missed a mountain bike ride that Brian K posted up for Elk Neck. It would have been fun, but it would not have been easy. I rode my cross bike from home up to the C&D canal and over to Lums Pond.  I didn't realize trails were closed but I was happy to get in a mile on the trails before I encountered the ACTIVE HUNTING TRAIL CLOSED sign.  On the return trip I went bushwhacking on some of the old fire roads that run parallel and above the newly paved Mike Castle Trail along the canal. There's an old railroad lift bridge that still operates.  It's the only way trains get into "slower" Delaware.  I've always thought it was a pretty cool engineering feat and one of these days I'd like to catch it in operation and watch a train make the crossing.

Oh, was there a sign?

C&D Lift Bridge. Yeah I know Lux, my hoods are too high.
And yes, a bottle cage...

On Sunday I still had the jones for a mountain bike ride so I met some guys for a White Clay/Middle Run ride.  The mountain bike felt heavy - I was not riding smooth.  I hadn’t ridden it since my last mountain bike race in August.  Middle Run and White Clay trails have some great flow.  So smooth. Ryan Stahnke had the lead and he laid down a blistering pace for the whole 26 miles.  I refused to budge off his wheel.  It hurt.  A lot.  And it was not easy.  So much for the training plan.  But man it was a fun ride.  Sometimes when I’m pushing way into the red on a trail ride I forget what part of the trail we are on.  I mean, I still recognize the trail and know the best line for the next turn...but I’ve momentarily forgotten just where the hell we are exactly.  That happened once yesterday.

Ryan crushing my soul. This dude is riding pretty smooth
these days. Hey, you try to get a better picture at warp speed.

When I got home I watched the World Cup cross race that had aired earlier that morning from Belgium.  When I see these European races I kind of wish our races were tough and wet and sandy and muddy.  Then I think, screw that…that would take a lot of time to clean and cost a lot of money in damaged parts.  I haven’t watched many World Cup races but this race, to me, was the best I've seen so far.  I was pulling for Sven.  The “old” guy.  The master.  Sven slowly, calmly came from about fifteen deep up to the front.  Yes, you have to have world class power and endurance to pull that off - to ride up to the front like that.  But it’s how he did it that was so fun to watch.  The guy is really smooth.  Sven and I both ride Trek Boone cross bikes.  Coincidence?  Yeah, probably...

Sven Nys. Smooth.  Dirty, but smooth.

I had always imagined the song was named Smooth because the guitar work was so smooth.  Nope.  Someone else wrote the music and Rob Thomas wrote the words and named the track Smooth after stripping out the original writer’s words and title.  Then he handed the song over to Santana to perform.  The song had been playing in my head all week - time to take it for a spin.  Like my mountain bikes, my guitars had been sitting untouched for a long time.  Months.  A year?  Maybe.  I rounded up my gear, plugged in and dialed up a nice vintage half stack kind of sound.  I was clumsy.  I’d forgotten how to ride smooth...but I hadn’t forgotten how to ride.  I sat there for almost an hour working it out.  Getting smoother.  Just that little intro lick.  Fifteen seconds worth.  Over and over.  It took a lot of work but it was really fun when I started to get it down.  When you hear it played it sounds pretty simple – it should be easy.  But it’s how it’s played… Santana plays it so smooth.

Binge Racing

A couple years ago I took a random photo in the parking lot of Elk Neck State Park after a really fun mountain bike ride. Fatmarc was talking to a couple guys about the ride and making animated gestures. I snapped a photo and posted it up to Instagram with the caption Tales of Radness. The end of a ride or a race is the best part...everybody has their tales of radness.

Fatmarc Tales of Radness. With Brian K, Josh and Shindler circa January 2013

The year before that picture, as I was plotting my ascension to the CAT 1 mountain bike ranks, I ended up sidelined with an injury and binge-watched the first four seasons of Breaking Bad. I was addicted. I would tell myself, "just one episode, I need to get some sleep" and four episodes later it would be two in the morning. I think I finished those four seasons in one week. I binged on a bunch of other series as well that year - it was just too easy with Netflix and Amazon piped to our TVs and Fios serving up anything they didn't have. All the shows, all the time. Night or day.

Say my name.

Here in the mid-Atlantic we are fortunate to have a ton of bike racing options. It's like the Netflix, Amazon and Fios of racing except you can find it all on one menu - BikeReg.com. So many racing options you have to make choices. This? Or that?  I'm having a blast racing cyclocross this year and every week I look forward to taking in a new episode. "Just one" I tell myself but by the middle of the week I'm signed up for two. And so it goes. I've raced seven double weekends this year including a run of four in a row that just wrapped up. Double weekends are great because it doubles your chance to end the weekend on a high note. I need all the at-bats I can get with this group. It's a tough tough group.

This past weekend was the Kutztown double weekend. I raced it last year and didn't really like it. I can't really put my finger on it. Just didn't really like anything about the course. For the Saturday MAC race I felt a little flat so even if I hadn't started fourth row, probably no chance to get up close to the top ten group. I ended up in a solid group of bad asses to start with: DLowe, Johan and then Luxxy leading us around. Reglar came around after one and we all tried to hitch a ride but he was rolling too fast. Lux took over on the Reglar chase and shook me off in the process. Johan wasn't done either and he came around me and things kind of stretched out like that from there. Lux and Johan were laying it down. I had nothing for them. Well done boys.

Luxxy pulling us around on Saturday. Photo credit: Dennis Smith

On Sunday the race was PACX and a lot of the super fast boys sat this one out. The day before Luxxy said "this course is going to ride a lot better the other way" and so it was. Not just a lot better - a totally different course. Ripping fast turns and everybody was railing them. The straights seemed much more strategic and all the turns and switchbacks had more flow. I was loving it. And I was feeling good and I had a front row start. At Sly Fox the week before I felt like I stayed in line too long. I didn't take chances to bridge up and try and get on the lead group. At Kutztown Sunday it seemed like the same thing might play out - there was a threat of a gap growing as Gerry moved by and Barry, Kelly and Reuther started pushing the pace. I kept thinking "I gotta go."  I was pretty winded and a few bike lengths opened up between our groups. "Gotta go. Now."  I put in a dig and got myself around and attached just as the pace picked up. Kelly had kind of coached me on it the day before and there I was on his wheel. On the rivet but on his wheel.

Gotta Go.

Soon after, Reuther sketched out and flatted so now it was Barry and Gerry leading and Kelly and I chasing.  Barry and Gerry started really putting it down on lap two and Kelly and I were coming detached. Kelly and I traded pulls back and forth for six laps. It was fast, fun and there was a lot of suffering. Hetrick started pulling up on the fourth lap but he trashed his wheel on a bad barrier sequence and that was that. I was in front of Kelly going into the last lap. I tried a couple digs but Kelly stayed right there. I knew I was in trouble then because I had laid it all out trying to shake him off. Kelly attacked with 1/3 of a lap to go and I just couldn't get my legs to respond. He caught me just right. I remember shaking my head, knowing it was over. But it was a good day. A great day.

This happened. And then I got dropped. But let's not focus on that last part.
Photo credit: Dennis Smith

 A couple weeks ago Tyler came home with a nasty stomach virus. We both laid around for two days moaning and throwing up. It sucked, but I dialed up Amazon...see what's new. I hadn't binged on any series in a couple years. Apparently I haven't lost my touch. Binge like a pro. Amazon had a couple shows, Red Oaks and Mozart in the Jungle. Highly recommend both (if you have Amazon Prime I guess).  There was also a single pilot show, Highston which I understand will be a series soon. The first episode has Flea and Shaq - you can't beat that and it was really great. Go binge. Well, binge on cross first. Save the couch for post season.

Peace all.