Gloucester is no Mickey Mouseter, that is for fucking sure. Baby Luck would abandon me today as would my legs, appartently. This is as current a race report as one can get, Snead is in the shower and I am still wearing my chamois, listening to Slayer and waiting my turn to clean the dismay off my body.
Having Chappy out here was the one saving grace and he was great, saving us front row scrum spots so we could warm up as long as possible and start in a relatively good position, maybe 4th row. Right next to me was non other than Chris Horner and behind me was Tonkin. Both without points but sure to be moving ahead, so good wheels to jump on. Starts in a race like this are crazy, elbows are out, dudes are swerving across your wheel and you can't really see that far ahead of you. After half a lap the dust settles a bit and you look ahead and see that you are back about 50 guys from the front. I tried to follow both Horner and Tonkin but I got blasted off pretty quickly. I don't have a good excuse, I just couldn't get it going. I didn't feel really bad, just not fast at all. The race course is great and really caters to power riders, I couldn't muster the strength and had to experience my least favorite sensation: going backwards.
Snead and I rode near eachother for a bit of the race and things didn't get awful until I flatted the front with 4 to go. I was not super far from the pits and the sand section which was either a run or ride was on the way to the pits. I probably only lost 10 spots, but I got a great change from Chappy and then latched on to the end of the group. I rode really hard at this point, hoping I could get back up to the group that Josh was in but I never succeeded. I was spent and couldn't move up.
Coming into the final uphill sprint I was dust and could do nothing to defend my spot which was probably about a millionth. Josh finished a bit up the road, but we both felt pretty sucky at the end of the day. Chappy was great and I really appreciate him being there for us, he will be paid in beer. He also set me up with my new Tifosi shades so I will look pretty pimp for tommorow's sufferfest.
Ouch is the word for the day. I am off to the showers and hopefully I can have a Floyd Landis day tommorrow. Guess that means I will have to crack open a bottle of old No. 27 and some beers at the very least.
Simon.
2 comments:
Let JD be your guide. It's time for the angst to come out and fan the flames of friggin flailin' mud spewing tire spinning ( check your email for a demo) third world vengeful mouth open ...something or other, I don't know. Tomorrow is another day. All those guys that really flew today might not be so keen tomorrow, you never know. Hey, wake up and give her a shot.....I could go on, but no need at this point. I hope your next race is a much happier one, anyway. Cheers, swiggboss. Funny, ye olde timbewolfe called it......he knew that this race was going to be tough even for a predator.
Michael had to look up priapism for me..but he knew bonobo
Holy cow...some tough racing back there.
Simon...go get em tomorrow, and the next time.
And bring that sweet smile back home to us.
Say hi to Brent.
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