Wednesday

Wednesday was an interesting one.

7:45am:

Left Hollywood to go ride up to Mt. Wilson with the wednesday morning crew. Nice. The descent from Wilson to Redbox never ever gets old. I'm a fan. Turned down, had a coffee/croissant for lunch, and got to work at the crack of noon. Nothing emphatic to report at work. Got off at 5pm to head to a downtown happy hour that I hadn't been to since I got back from Wisconsin...and with the season nearly over, why not? 3 drinks. 3/4 of a pizza. Home at 7:30.

You following this schedule? Days for me are normally over after that. But...Johnny comes with this email:

Free money. Bikes. Hmm...that link leads to this page:


MANO E MANO SPRINTS. I'm a sprinter right? I especially like the ambiguity of the purse/$ situation. Not too different from some of the more "civil" uscf/cbr crits we do out here. Still, I had no plans to attend. 8:45 I was still home. Bored, slightly buzzed, and curious.....I put on a t-shirt and cargo shorts. Sprinted down to the metro and the train came right as I got there -a good omen. They're usually once every 20 that time of night. Got to the bike path pictured above....the turnout was as expected. Fixed gear scenesters from the valley. A couple guys on geared bikes. One guy with a proper full-record torelli carbon bike. And one poser-looking guy with an SRM on a carbon specialized with Sram. This guy was also the only one with a helmet. Who does that?

So we line up. Geared category, and fixed categories. GREAT stretch of bike path on which to battle. Wide, smooth, flat....and lit. It was 10pm by the time it started. The money situation: I had a $20. Other people had less. I put it in, another guy put $20, some guy put some quarters. Really random stuff. I'm pretty sure that at no point did anyone suspect that I was a cat-anything racer. Just a guy with a pretty cool bike. Two distances on the day. One was no more than 100 meters, the other was closer to 300. We started with the 100. Of course, I matched up with the guy on the only other proper bike. Lined it up. 8 seconds later, it was over. I lost. Overgeared, by the time I got up to a proper cadence, it was over...

Weird. We did a second run, I clipped out my pedal. I've never clipped out a pedal. The bike and everything connected to it just gets totally wrecked and maxxxed out in something this short and violent. Both biceps and the left side of my chest were sore immediately afterward. Got me thinking about my sprint mechanics. The srm was hooked up. Max read "1.60". Mon dieu. Can't be right. I set the zero, and did the next run (which I was lucky to even get, given the pedal mishap...it's 2 out of 3, and I wouldve been eliminated!). Second run I got a good jump, and kept accelerating to the line...not smooth at all, mind you, but there was definitely some juice going to the pedals. He got the jump, but I turned the rockets on in time and won by a wheel. Here's the stat sheet:


Yeah. New max. I bet the chain breaks at 1.70...anyhow. All the guys wanted to do a "winner take all" meaning I'd go up against the winner of the fixed gear group. Eh. I was pretty beat. Fixed winner had at least 5 beers on me. Tired all around, but hey. The crowd (of 11.4) wanted it. We raced, got an easy jump, soft-pedal, he comes up, hit the switch....and done...all his hopes and dreams? Plooop. Lets just say the guy wasn't the classiest loser...and leave it at that. Total purse: $53.75.

woooo!