Hot August Nights cont

Some more random things about this race, 24 hour is a long time and it deserves more than one post.

Andrew Parry came for a visit, We almost convinced him to race back home and get his bike and put a few laps in. Hey there was still room on our team roster. Instead he drank beer.

One of my team mates showed up Saturday morning smelling like he was locked in the l.c.b.o over night. Ya, we gave him a few hours to sober up.

The Misfit Dance party was awesome from what I saw of it. One small problem with it. They put it at the bottom of a hill. Had they put it at the top of a really steep hill I bet they would have had ten times the amount of riders stopping. I didn't stop because I know I go down hill better than I go up and things in motion should stay in motion.

Speaking of hills, I must formally apologize to the guy I Nascar'd at the uphill corner at the half way mark of the lap. Yep that short left hand turn right above the timing tent. I saw him in the distance, I saw he was struggling a little going over the couple roots and slowing a little, I heard the derailleur shift and the chain clank a little, I watched him get stalled up to the point I was pretty sure he wasn't going to make the climb.

This was all as I came full speed out of the switch back decent right above the timing tent, shifted up at least two gears and started pinning it towards the turn, Cut in tight at the roots still accelerating, shifted again, stood up, drifted towards the riders front wheel as I stood and jammed down on the pedals, missed the fence by a few inches, missed the rider by a few more than a few inches, preyed that he had come to a stop, hammered the hill and accelerated over the top.

Now the kicker of it, as this all happens all I hear is "nice turn Earnhart", I found out tonight that that Andrew and half my team were all at the fence line when this happened and saw the whole thing. I'm sorry to who ever it was, had I not kept on that I think I would have put us both into the fence.

I reminded myself that having a set of wheels mounted with mud tires at all time is a great idea but actually bringing them to a race is even better. My second lap I was forced to run up a few of the hills because of complete lack of traction.

Andrew Watson and his bike weight about the same as I do. Roughly 154 lbs. Someone should feed him.

I'm still wondering what would have happened if any of the Norco riders saw what we did to him.

Adam and Sean Ruppel have huge shoulders. These two guys have had the roughest season but every time still put on one hell of a show. When the rain came down in the early afternoon Sean asked me for a job. You can have one only when you start laying out crappy race courses.

This was an awesome course, I said it earlier, I really wish I would have been racing solo. Great flow, lots of single track. The funny thing with it was there was a huge section of double track. Maybe a 1.5 km as you hammered back towards the timing tent. This was actually fun. Big ring pain type fun.

My lights like usual were amazing. I feel spoiled sometimes on how bright they are. Wait till you see whats coming. More on that later.

On my first lap I have never ever seen that many mechanical issues. I think I passed more riders on the side of the trail fixing things that I passed riding.

Passing was amazing, everyone was really good about it. That's what makes it fun. The level of riders is pretty vast.

Speaking of that, a comment that kinda caught me off guard came from a woman standing beside me in transition during my first lap. Andrew and I were smack talking a little and when he decided to nicely reposition my bike I made one hell of a scene. Of course everyone is looking but this woman said something in the lines of that's a dirty move. I gave the really short story of who Andrew was and this little team rivalry thing happening . Then she said something that caught me off guard a little. "it's pretty cool the fact that some of the best racers in Canada are riding with people who started almost yesterday" And why??? To have fun. It was one of those reality check things reminding me why I do this. It's fun. It doesn't mater if you are fast or not, it's fun.

I've learned that in a team race I can live on blueberry muffins and Infinit.

Albion Hills food people had the best coffee of any venue I've ever raced. For those that saw me at 3am talking at a million miles an hour you will agree that it did it's job. mmmm coffee!!!

I had at least 10 people ask me where the Molly Monster was, I know I should have brought her.

There are already talks of doing this again next year.

There are different grades of balloons and some break and some do not. I found out that the ones I bought don't break. Lesson learned.

Sleeping does not happen during a 24 hour event even on a big team.

Most of my teammates including myself could have fit in the small sized t-shirt that everyone entered gets. That's pretty bad. Frail little cyclists.

I think that is all for the moment, maybe I can make this turn into three posts. Probably not so something new and exciting for tomorrow.