Kenny's 12 Hours Of Tsali Re-Cap: The Horseshoe Was Crammed Up The Ole Butthole

My original 12 Hours of Tsali write-up was borderline pornographic if not completely incoherent, like a Penthouse letter dictated by Thomas Pynchon, so I figured I’d post my play list that was never used. Gone Riding bans I-Pods with headphones so shit got pretty crucial from a sanity point of view around hour 8.

You can only ding a handlebar bell so long before you start thinking horrible thoughts. On second thought, my play list was too big for a blog post so maybe I’ll just include the first hour or two. Wait, I need to include a race detail. Hmmm, where to start? I guess I’ll start with Friday night’s binge drinking and sausage consuming. After the sausage/binging, it was time for 4 hours of sleep and an early morning run to Bojangles (!) for biscuits and coffee. Fast forward to the start of the race. It was Le Mans which is French for “Kenny don’t run”. But not to be outdone by Kelly Baisley, I jogged so I could beat her to the bikes; send an early message to her: “I will crush you”. The first lap was uneventful.

The second was too. I think I saw Will or was that the third? A loose headset was fixed by Eric after berating him for his slackness. He was already drunk by 1:00 PM. Belligerent by 3:00 and approaching David Lee Roth levels by 5:00. I eventually met up with Kyle and we rode together until I attacked him on a climb to see how he was feeling. He faded like a high top and I was soon getting wind of first. Not sure where I made contact with him, maybe the fifth lap?

Anyhoo, he had a splacknasty Lynskey with splacknasty I-9 wheels that got a bell ding of admiration from me. The next laps were fairly uneventful. I started walking the long fire road climb and “shreddin” the backside swoopiness. Lights went on around 8:10 for me. It was quite a scene. I was totally unprepared. Nothing was ready so I made Eric do everything, berating him, staring at him with disdain, disgust. It felt good. After the 10th lap, I decided to call it a day. I was handed a beer and started to decompress until I realized Will could catch me if he busted out two fast fucking laps. I set my beer down, after Kelly lit sparklers for me and went out for a leisurely 11th lap. I passed 1st on the gravel road climb and thought “This is for Jeremy Edge you SOB!” He then hammered past me 20 seconds later, but it still felt good. Didn't walk the fravel road once! Rolled into through finish line for my real finish at 10:45, 5 minutes too late for lap 12 and called it a day. I’ve never done the champagne thing before on the podium so when I opened the bottle, instead of arching out like a super-charged, virile, firehose blast, it dribbled, flat and impotent onto my feet. I wanted to drink it anyway so that’s what I/we did. Then Kyle vomited uncontrollably behind our tent set-up next to Sycamore Cycles. Now that's punk rock. Pretty sure the only reason I won first was because Will was overgeared, Kyle was undernourished and most of the heavy hitters were racing at Burn 24, but hey, a win is a win!