In 2006, I put on a cross race at UNH. We thought it would be a good idea to do it on a field near campus. We thought it would be awesome and everyone would have fun.
HOWEVER, we did not take into account that most of the course was practically five feet below the water table. That there was no available water for bike washing. That the starting/staging area was about 100 feet long.
As a result, people were running almost the entire race, derailleurs were ripped off, Merlin from SRAM (yes, we somehow got him to show up) just said “Fuck it” and took my bike down to the nearby stream after I handed it to him after my “race”. He dunked it a few times, and handed it back to me. As he passed it off, his eyes met mine, and his gaze communicated to my soul a message along the lines of “Holy shit, kid, this is the shittiest race I’ve ever been too.”
