Monday, April 28, 2008

Single in Vegas

What a weekend! I'm broken, from being abused by a rigid cyclocross bike for three hours, and the requisite drinking before and after the race. And a brutal race it was, 45km through the awesome Redwoods, which just got harder with each lap. Everyone who rode it, includding SS animal and winner Garth Weinberg, declared it as one of the toughest races ever. I declared it one of the toughest drinking sessions ever...
The course wasn't revealed until we actually got into the forest, and it was a cool figure-8 layout, nothing too long and steep but plenty of technical challenges to punish the tired and/or unattentive.

Chris The Courier got a good start and rode with the big guns for awhile, and finished in 6th place... awesome ride CTC! He would fade later that night in the drinking stakes though, proving once again that the young guys just don't have the endurance.

Kah just about to put a move on me into the first corner, followed by me putting a move on him into the second corner. My bike got plenty of attention and cheers, probably for the "why the hell are you riding that?" aspect of it.

Cabin and Garth were like this for almost the whole race, with Cabin pulling the lead after a beer stop, then Garth re-taking him on the last lap, both doing a final beer-slam to finish off in true SS style. I was doing my beer stop when Cabin came in, and I was still there struggling to get down the Speights as he flew off back onto the course resplendent in his beige skinsuit (a la the NZ cricket team of the 80's).

The first two laps I was on auto-vision when light rain rendered my glasses useless.... I stopped and removed the tinted lenses after lap two, the rain stopped, and I could see clearly now.
Didn't stop me from crashing a couple of times though, the skinny tyres, rigid fork, beer-goggles and fatigue teaming up to slam me to the ground.

When it was all over, the real event began at the Pig N Whistle, where I performed a lot better than I had earlier in the day. The rest of the night, well, what happens in Vegas stays in Vegas!
Thanks to Chris The Courier's mum Robyn for taking the pics.

2 comments:

Unknown said...

I would have loved to ride my 'crosser around that course, but unfortunately I could only bring 1 bike over.

brettok said...

Sorry for my ignorance, but I don't know who you are! Refresh my memory please....