Intermission

I haven't blogged about my little bike races in a while.  Shame on me. Mostly that my work's fault.  I really only have the time to blog while I am at work (don't tell my boss).  Once I get home, forget about it... too busy.  Well it's been busy at work for way too long!  Which side tracks me to having to say that I am so freaking tired of hearing people say " count yourself lucky that you have a job nowadays".  Really? Is that what our middle class is being broken down to. No pay raises in several years; increase in benefit co-payments; significant increase in productivity due to staff not being replaced when it should; and we should just count ourselves happy and lucky???   People seriously need to be able to discern between two scenarios. If your company is struggling in the red zone and no one has been laid off, then yes indeed count yourself lucky!  But if your company is posting profits, like most large ones are, then let's face it, if you consider yourself luck, you are just being suckered!  It spells out: more work for less pay so someone who already has enough can have even more!  Anyways, back to the important stuff: bike stuff...

There have been several noteworthy races since the world cup in Windham, and I did not do that race justice in the blog below but I needed to get it out of the draft area it has been living in for the past two months.    


After Windham, there was the Wrath of the Boneyard in CT, a new race.  Great course.  First half was very rocky with a nice techy rock garden.  The second half had no rocks at all and was swoopy loamy single track in the woods.  Very nice contrast between the two sections of that race.  Finished 6th.  


Then there was the mud fest at the Annual Hodges Village Dam race in MA.  Boy did it rain that day!  Just driving my car on the highway was challenging.  Best part of the race was jumping in the creek after the race, bike and all, with fellow racers.  Worst part was ruining new cable set, and all the new bearings on the bike I had just paid an arm for.  That race hurt like a mofo too.  Physically and mentally it was painful pushing through all that water and mud.  Finished 5th. 


 Next race was the Millstone Grind Race in VT.  Went up the day before w/ Mike and Stacey since it was a long a** drive.  To add to it, I screwed up the directions and suddenly realize we're heading to Canada on the wrong highway!  That extended the drive by only a couple of hours.  Millstone is such a fun race course.  First lap was great: Sunny, dry, fast, but lots of tight swoopy turns you have to throw the bike through.  Beginning of second lap clouds had settled in and distant rumbling of thunder could heard.  By the end of the second lap rain was coming down pretty hard and the thunder was getting pretty loud.  By the last lap it had gotten really dark and lightning was striking very very near.  One of the lightning bolt struck so close it shook the forest all around.  I was climbing one of the two hills at that very moment which was not very comforting!

By the end of the lap the rain had stopped and the blue skies were back. I did have a slow leak on that last lap and managed to complete most of the lap carefully enough to not require a tube change.  I was completely flat about 1 mile from the finish and decided to ride it out.  Finished 2nd (out of 4! - in other words, another mid pack finish).