Monday, March 2, 2009

Hillbilly Kentucky

My first weekend of collegiate racing was certainly not what I was expecting, or wanting for that matter. We traveled down to Murray, Kentucky on Friday afternoon. Having never experienced a tornado before I was amazed at how strong they must be as I was looking out my window seeing tree after tree on the ground. I was told that in my next few months in the Midwest I was sure to see one. I have only ever seen them in the movies and didn’t ever think I would be living in area prone to them. We later discovered that the area had previously had an ice storm and then was hit by a tornado. Only in America.
My first race was a 100km relatively flat road race. To say it was miserable would be an understatement, it didn’t rise above 1C (33F) and was either raining, icing or snowing! It was certainly a lot colder then the other side of your pillow. Without going into too much detail Frank managed to make it into the 8-man winning break and finished 7th while Chev and Owen led me out for the bunch sprint, pretty sure my legs were frozen though and only managed 4th in the kick. I must apologize to Chev for calling him Stroot in the last few k’s which gives you an indication of the state of mind I was in. Saturday night we found ourselves in quite the hillbilly restaurant. As always Chev entertained the table and made it clear that he wasn’t here to “f*ck monkeys”!
With some more snow overnight it didn’t really put me in the mood to race bikes on Sunday. When we arrived and checked out the criterium course it didn’t make our motivation levels any higher. This crit course can only be explained by saying that it was a piece of art...800m long with 15 corners to a lap. I later worked out that over the duration of the race we would have cornered over 500 times.




Before the race Paddy told us we would all crash, and I knew he wasn’t joking. Myself and Paddy got off to a good start but it only took 3 laps before I witnessed Paddy’s1st of 3 crashes for the race. Two laps later, while I was still managing to hold the front group I came down on the same corner. The corner was wet, off camber, had a pot hole, was 180° and had a join between two sections of pavement! After that I couldn’t really get going again. Owen had the best race out of us and finished 6th. Chev, who was the only one NOT to crash finished 9th, the rest of us came in in the top 20. It was a truly remarkable crit and hope I never have to ride something like it again. Apparently it was entertaining to watch though so I’m happy some people enjoyed it. On the start line
 
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