Friday, May 6, 2011

Collegiate Nats Road Race.

The one water bottle rule was very hard to follow today. Tela had a coach in the past who had a rule: You are allowed the time it takes you to drink one water bottle to be upset about something in a race. After that, it is time to move on.

To say that things did not go as planned would be an understatement. I came into this race prepared to fight for the win. A promising move got away on the main climb after a little less then an hour of racing and I was in it. Myself and the two guys I knew going into the race were the ones to watch had got away on the climb. After a couple of rotations, I looked back and saw nothing but my teammate Steve Fisher bridging the gap solo. Perfect situation. Steve made the bridge, and we started to roll through. Then I promptly flatted. Since the gap was not yet a minute, we had no wheel car behind us. After a painful wheel change I got rolling again, the group was out of sight, and I went from being OTF to OTB. No longer the perfect situation! No pacing back from the car, no caravan, and no luck catching back on. I chased until it was very clear I was not catching back on, and pulled the plug in the feedzone.

OK, one water bottle done.

We are in Maddyson, WI for these bike races.
Not this type of madison SILLY 
It's pretty important to know that for the collegiate bike racing, you have to be considered a full-time student. When registering for Spring quarter classes, I was only able to get two of the classes I needed. Therefore I would not be considered full-time, and wouldn't be eligible for Collegiate Nats. Not OK! This race weekend has been on the top of my priority list all season, so I signed up for some random class that was in no-way needed or relevant for my college education. And sure enough, that class is the only class I had to bring work for to do on this trip. Womp womp womp.

Western has 4 guys racing here this weekend. We've got the Bike Sale Ladies Man Michael Spring, the Wattage Cottage Steve Fisher, the Alligator from the movie Lake Placid Ryan Short, and me.


 We all have our little... issues to talk about.

1) Bike Sale Ladies Man unfortunately seems to have no idea how to pin numbers.
One of these is not like the other. Oh wait, yeah they're the same    
But true to his name, nothing like a hallway Girlfriend Skype session. Cheers!


2) The Alligator from the movie Lake Placid's problem is that he simply doesn't understand the advanced bicycle mechanics.
Wrestling the bike
But luckily for all of us, the Alligator from the movie Lake Placid has some crazyyyy dance moves, stemmed from days of triathlons. Also explains the seat smashed all the way forwards on the bike cycle machine.

3) The Wattage Cottage is short

But luckily for the Wattage Cottage he also pedals his bike pretty damn fast also. Stevey put his cards all in and got in a move with the future race winner and two other guys with a lap and a half to go, but unfortunately for uh, everyone, the winner had robotic legs. Here is a picture I snapped of the winner immediately after he crossed the line.

4) And finally, me. My problem? I'm as cute as a button

But really, I just needed a bridge to cross so I could talk about dogs real quick.
Check it out! Super dogs! Navy Seal trained dogs who participated in the OBL mission. That's cool stuff!

Tomorrow is the TTT and Sunday is the crit. Gangsta's paradise.

I already forgot about the road race.

1 comment:

  1. Nice work at nats to all four of you guys. Ian, your blog is hilarious.

    ReplyDelete