SOCK and RACE REPORT – PVD adventures.

OH HELL YES SOCKS.

I got a box o’ socks from my friends at People For Bikes.  Well, specifically, probably one friend.  Also included in the box was a collection of COFFEE.

This is great because I am a person who likes bikes, and I like pushing the agenda of a bicycle as a fantastic mode of transportation.  I also like socks and coffee.

I grabbed two pairs of socks, a few packages of coffee, my camping stove and bike racing shit and hopped in Curtis’ car and OFF WE ZIPPED to Providence (we could not take bikes to Providence, as this was an instance in which a car was a better mode of transportation).

note: I do not talk about anyone else other than me and the shit that I did.  This is because I’m narcissistic and because I’m writing it on Friday and my brain is broken.

SATURDAY’S BIKE RACE!

Got to the race with Curtis, and quickly departed to set up shop with my other driving partner for the weekend, Alex Cox.

The one-car dream really only works if you have friends who like taking your gas money.

I was pretty excited, as I got to play the “get dressed and ready insanely fucking early for my race” game.  A game usually won by Adam Sullivan, who I saw kitted up FOUR HOURS BEFORE OUR RACE.

I spent much of my time making grilled cheeses and coffee, though I managed to squeeze in a few laps on the course.

Oh, and as I’m writing this on Friday and it’s rainy and shitty out, I think I need to mention that it was FUCKING EIGHTY DEGREES in Providence.  Which is wacky nunu for cyclocross.  Also, Roger Williams Park is apparently devoid of water fountains (though there is a bacteria-infested pond that will give you ultraAIDS if you touch it), so I rode my bike through the lovely area surrounding the park (sarcasm) to buy two gallons of water.

I tried to prevent myself from running around like a maniac, though I did manage to get in some good spectating and friend talking.  The Ernest was there, and the dude was SUPERFANNING IT for the entire day.  I gave him a gallon of water.  Shit was hot.

ANYWHO, bike racing time came, and I was quite excited because I rediscovered my motivation and aggression.  After being out of my element and riding “intelligently” at Gloucester, I had a bad race and was sad and didn’t race on Sunday.  I planned on changing that at Providence, by racing as hard as I fucking could until I wasn’t able to race any more.

SO WE WERE OFF.  The first lap on the Providence course is always a lot of fun (unless, of course, you blow a tire on the first turn curb), as there’s plenty of opportunities for sharp elbows.  I made sure I had my elbow knives at the ready, and was in the scrum for a while before things started settling down…and I found myself riding with Cary.

Generally, I should not be riding with Cary.  He is a much better cross rider than I am (read: he knows how to turn), so I can stay with him for a little while before I get tired of having to chase back on to his wheel on every non-technical section to make up for my poor execution of the previous technical section.

But I was really excited, and eventually found myself AHEAD OF HIM, riding my fucking face off in an attempt to keep him away.  I was as business-like as I ever get, as evidenced by this photo of me ignoring a dollar hand-up:

YES.  I WAS ALL BUSINESS.

However, business started to slow with two laps to go, as my brain needed to race for at least 60 minutes and my body was completely unprepared to do so.  Things started getting ugly, and Hunter Pronovost – who actually has a greater discrepancy between power and handling ability than I do – escaped the BRKZ with the encouragement of one C. Catalano.

Cosmo needs to stop cheering for people to pass me, because they keep doing it.

Cosmo also must have been cheering for Cary, as he eventually found his way out of the BRKZ.  I knew he was coming (as I could hear people cheering for him to beat me), and I tried to keep the gap up on the few remaining straights, though my body was broken despite my spirit being full of blood lust.

The last lap was damage control.  I finished 42.  I was not lapped.  Justin Lindine destroyed everyone, though the only times I saw him all weekend were when he was riding around and I told him how much of a jerk he is and how much more I like Jeremy Durrin.

SATURDAY’S HANGING OUT TIMES

Alex and I drove north to Somerville to stay with a frazzled Colin Reuter who obviously forgot we were coming.  It wasn’t a huge problem until we got to the house, he wasn’t there, and I was about to poop my pants.

Luckily, this IS Reuter Hall, so I stood outside shouting “Bike racing!” until some that knew of me let me in, and I pooped and I felt a lot better.

Alex and I then strolled down the street, got a 12 pack of brewskis, and sat on Colin’s porch with Andrew and we had some brews until Colin got home.  After trying to get my Boston friends to go somewhere with us, we just went on a date and had some delicious dinner, followed by pints of Ben and Jerry’s, followed by chatting, followed by me laying in bed awake until 1:30 a.m. because my legs hurt too much to fall asleep.

BREAKFAST TIMES?!?

FUCK YEAH BROADWAY BOWL AT SOUND BITES.

SUNDAY’S RACING TIMES

I felt like absolute, 100% unfiltered shit on Sunday.  I just wanted to sleep.  I was pretty sure that I’d fall asleep during my race from how tired I was.

But my race wasn’t for a very long time, so I got some spectating in, some chatting with The Ernest and large amount of coffee drinking, topped off with some Red Bull.

Yeah.  It was real.

The problem with Red Bull is that 90% of the times I drink it, it’s in one of the following situations:

1. I am about to fall asleep and am driving somewhere very far away (Florida, PA, etc).
2. I am drinking it with Red Bull.

So, as you can imagine, my body does not have great connotations with the product – either I feel like ass, or I will feel like ass in five hours after time travelling.

REGARDLESS.  RACING.

I was pretty sure I wouldn’t be beating Cary today.  Because he slept well and I slept like ass.  My goal, then, became to be really aggressive and see how long I could last before I imploded.

Also – Synjen wins everything.  Forever:

The course was almost the same as the previous fifty editions of the race (not that that’s a bad thing – it’s a pretty fun course), save for the addition of MORE PAVEMENT THAN I WOULD LIKE.

Yes.  Sometimes even I do not like pavement in a cross race.  The 800m of pavement at the start is, apparently, more than I’d care to have to ride on in one section.

But hey, whatevs.

BOOM BAM RACE TIME.

Did I mention that I drew a start position of 3?  That meant that I was practically in “I have UCI points land”, but without the legs to back it up, so I obviously slid right to the back at the start.  Fine by me.

The start was also the last time I was within spitting distance of Cary – dude was long gone from me.

I settled into my group after the appropriate amount of time, and took some water feeds from Whiskers in the pit and tried to not pass out from exhaustion.  I eventually left the group I was with and spent a good amount of time riding on my own, trying in vain to catch Austin Roach who dieseled his way by me at one point.

I had my (now standard) two-to-go implosion, deciding to spend most of the last two laps sitting on the wheel of Patrick Bradley until he dropped me like a rapidly aging Mel Gibson in Forever Young doing….something.

Fuck, that could have been a good analogy, but my brain is broken after a day of working in Excel.  I am just going to leave that there, half finished.

Then I had to keep Alistair Sponsel from catching me, but held him off for 43.  I imagine that Alistair and I will be having some frequent battles for the remainder of the season.

Then I begged Exeter Cycle’s very own Billy for $4 for a beer, and he bought it for me, and I was unable to drink it, as I felt like I was going to die.

Then Curtis and I drove back.

SOCK REVIEW:

The socks are quite a bit thinner than the SRAM socks I wore the previous two weekends.  I do like how high they are.  I also like that they’re white, but I feel they are quickly going to be yellowish brown.  They are better than the SRAM XX socks, though I have yet to wear the SRAM Red socks – which I feel might be a bit tighter (in a good way).

Further sock reviews as I continue racing.