BBQ x 2

Sunday, 27 August

I see that my most recent posts feature recurring images of tandem captains' helmets, so I'll skip that theme this time and talk about my next favorite (after tandems) subject: food.

There was a BBQ after the hillclimb yesterday to fill in the large amount of idle time between the conclusion of the race (1:30--pity the juniors who finished at 11:30) and the posting of results (3:30). It was somewhat successful in keeping us from getting too restless, and the food was good.

There was also a BBQ at the Seward Park race today; this was the WSBA's end-of-season "party" hosted by the great guys at First Rate Mortgage. I grazed at this one but never did the full-meal deal. BBQ potato chips get me every time....and Coke and cookies turned out to be pretty good prerace food.

If I were truly a competitive soul, I would have been in Bend yesterday for the last event in the Oregon Cup series. I should have been working to hold on to my fourth place overall in the competition. Very sadly, there was a nasty crash in the last 10 feet of the women's road race at the High Desert Omnium and about half the field went down (I think all but 3 eventually finished). My best wishes for speedy recoveries go out to all those riders. And maybe a pseudo-crit at Seward Park on a perfect summer day was not such a bad place to be.

The 13 women who raced at Seward today was a bigger number than this race usually sees. It was a good mix of riders without anybody to toy with the rest of us . Half the field was TGH--but TGH did not win and did not even get a majority of the primes. (Well, every lap after the first had a sock prime, and maybe TGH won more pairs of socks than anybody. But they didn't win the "big" primes.) The two Wines ladies put on a textbook display of teamwork, even when I knew they were both flagging at the end from their relentless hard work. I felt really guilty passing them at the finish.

I did not even expect to finish this race, so I was pleasantly surprised when I figured out that I would. Still, learning how to hang on and sit in was enough for me, and I never tried to move up far enough to "play." (Funny, though, that even if I don't "do crits," my brain still recognized when I should've been making moves that I wasn't.) That meant I was in a great position to sit and watch everybody else. So I was able to (1) get in a decent workout, (2) boost my confidence a little bit, and (3) enjoy some entertainment too (such as watching one woman chase down her teammate and seeing how bike handling degenerates on a hill when riders start to get tired).

I've just realized there will be no more pictures of tandem captains' helmets for the foreseeable future because I've no tandem prospects on the calendar. If late July was any indication, I now wait for depression to set in....