Ding! Ding! Order up!

. . . and that order would be a heaping plate of 'toughen the fuck up, buttercup', served piping hot at thursday eve's crit.

so, last thursday was a brisk ride in the wind and rain with the B class riders; hard enough to be quite challenging.  this week brought a move up into the A class, and a crit race.  hot damn, there is no comparison.  the jump in classes is r-i-d-i-c-u-l-o-u-s.

10 seconds after the words "A's roll out" the pack of 30 or so was doing 30 mph.  and it wasn't downhill.  thats when i knew i was fucked.  actually i knew i was in for some major league hurt when i saw the big boys from Truckee show up.  i hung onto the rear of the pack for all of 4 or 5 laps (that may even be pushing it) then i saw them pulling away on the roller up the back side.  and not slowly.  the shit hit the fan and after it was tossed about i found myself spit (or spat) out the back end.

anchoring the rear.

hurt face(s).

shelled.

not to worry though as i had the company of 2 other unlucky, broken carcasses.  we tried to work together until  30 minutes or so into the race WHEN WE WERE LAPPED.  yeah, lapped by the A's.  the up side is that we had caught the backend of the B class.  well at least we were faster than someone on the course.

i continued to ride my full 45 mins +3 laps even after being lapped by the A leaders and finished a probable DFL - with an average speed of 25 mph (including about 20 mins of solo time.)  the leaders had to be averaging somewhere near or above 30 mph.  i have no idea how to get that fast but i think i'm going to have to quit my job.

here's to hoping they add a B+/A- class soon.  photos by the B, aka B2.

lead group gettin'er done.  damn.

and yes, thats tumbleweed on the course during warm up.

broken, but at least i just had a beer - b