Bier en modder

At the end of the final gunfight of Clint Eastwood’s The Unforgiven, William Munny (Eastwood) stands over a wounded Little Bill (Gene Hackman) getting ready to end it.  “I don’t deserve this”, begs Little Bill.  “Deserve’s got nothin’ to do with it”, mumbles Munny, pulling the trigger.

A lot of shit happens during races, a lot of which feels like it’s way beyond our control; flats, crashes, mechanicals, weather, course conditions, the list goes on.  How much of this do we ‘deserve’?  I’m don’t know.  Most of it for sure.  We certainly make a choice to line up for it week in and week out.  No one’s paying me to get out there.  So in a way we’re severely compromising our right to bitch about it.

Did we deserve Wilsonville?  I’d say yes.  It’s good to get kicked in the ass once in a while.  I didn’t like the course at all but I’ll race it just the same if it shows up on the schedule next year.

Rough course this week.  Wilsonville will probably divide people the same way Barton does – you either like it or you don’t.  Less than 24 hours later, I’ve read and heard of enough comparisons to a MTB short track course.  I can agree with that.  Technical.  Very punishing.  Minimal passing room.  Relentless.  Yeah, that fits; relentless.

I got there in time to get the kids to the Kiddie Cross.  That’s always fun.  Just on the edge of chaos but the kids love it.  I’d like to start lobbying for a ribbon when I finish but I’ll just let it go for now.  While we were waiting for the kids race to start, the B/SS race was finishing up.  Hmm, there’s a lot of people carrying their bikes.

Didn’t get a pre-ride in.  I haven’t pre-ridden in 5 years – why start now?  Set up the trainer instead and got a great warmup in, hearing about the course from Kurt and Rich.  Once that was done, I decided on adding another 5# to the tires, moving them up to 40-41 psi.

Lined up and shortly after that, the race started.  Wow, this is like singletrack.  In a fairly short amount of time, the field strung out.  I picked my spots to pass (the short, bouncy uphills) and waited them out.  Many of the corners were dicey and had only one line.  Not too many places to pass.  I found myself waiting in traffic a few times until I could pass.

Dropped a chain twice, especially after the barriers, both times cost me about 5-7 spots.  I must be putting my bike down too hard.  Anyway, the first time it took about a lap to get those spots back.  The second time I only recovered one, maybe 2 spots.  That sucked.

With a couple laps to go, the course was wearing me down.  A little less snap out of the corners.  I’m sitting back on the bumpy uphills and getting thrown around.  My hands are raw and slightly numb.  I finish the race out and find the rear wheel is slowly getting flat.  Crap.  A brand new tubular.

Preliminary results have me at 23rd out of 72.  A slight improvement from last week but a little disappointing because of the lost spots getting my chain back on.  I don’t even want to talk about the tubular.

Got home and cleaned up.  Picked out Hair of the Dog – Fred From The Wood as a post-race beer.  Seemed to be appropriate.

Got an easy hour spin into work this morning.  I feel it in my legs and especially my shoulders.  Ouch.  Could be a day or so until this wears off.

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