Nationals

Eric S. ripping up the hill


pros

weather

Cj+ Mikey P

Linda Sone ripping it up another hill



There is nothing more exciting, more terrifying than lining up for your race at nationals. You don’t know who is in front of you, next to you or behind you. It’s an intense couple minutes. Whistle blows and sure enough, big pile up right in front of me. I don’t go down, but have to wade my way thru the mess-shoving bikes out of the way to get sprinting to the first turn. Rather than bury you with the details of the course, I’ll just say that the well-worn track was like racing on masking tape; slow and sticky. I could have run slicks and stuck to the ground. I hung in as long as I could, and found myself charging against fellow Minnesotan, Paul Thoresen. Made some bad turns, some ugly bobbles and could not-simply-find my groove. Quickly I was at the back of a VERY fast race. Coming around a sweeping off-camber turn, I caught my seat post on the fence stake and went over the bars. Didn’t really hurt, but enough to knock me funky for a moment. That was enough to fall behind the group and get pulled as I headed toward the wheel pit. I was grateful and disappointed at the same time. But that was my race at Nationals.

That being said, the rest of the time was killer. Hanging with fellow Crossniacs (and Paul McKinney) proved to be wonderful. We were messy guests in a wonderful, welcoming home. We ate Kansas City BBQ (not as good as Baker’s Ribs). We slept on the floor, we met all kinds of cool people and we cheered on friends, team mates and others. The Pros were fantastic to watch.

So thus ends the bike racing season for me. I gotta ride the trainer tonight, got a lot of work to do to get faster.


I'll post more pics as they come...