A little less than a year ago, I went out to watch one of my riding buddies, Rich, toe the line at a local cyclocross competition. Being a long time participant in recreational mountain biking and road cycling, I knew about cyclocross and what it was. Hell, I even knew that Sven Nys was fast on fast and that Lars Boom is the coolest fricken name in all of sport! But I had never been to a real, live cyclocross race. It was a cold but sunny Sunday. It had snowed 8 inches earlier in the week and parts of the course went right though some deep piles of the white stuff. I watched in wonder each time a racer piled it up in the snow. They popped right back up, completely unscathed, big shit-eatin’ grin on their face, and hammered on.
This was quite in contrast to the looks on the faces of the riders as they come in to the pits for post-crash mechanicals when I do neutral race support for RoL Wheels around the state. Those looks are always a combination of shock, pain, adrenaline rush and anger. It is always good when the chatter starts as you got five bleeding roadies waiting to get back in the race at the next lap on a crit. “Hey dick-wad, watch your line in that turn! You just took us all out!” to which the retort is something like “Kiss my hairy sack! It wasn’t me! It was that other guy who blew it and took me out first!” Ahhhh yes, there is nothing like a bunch of CAT 4 roadies mid-way thru a crit to display some witty banter. But I digress, this is about cyclocross.
One of the main reasons I was never interested in racing was the whole crashing concept. Ya see, I tend to crash a lot, and at 6”4”, when I go down, it is never a small deal. I have tested how my body reacts when I hit asphalt at speed dressed only in lycra and the bruising and scabs are something to be in awe of….. but, not to be repeated. As I watched the cross races throughout that day and saw all the carnage with minimal damage I got to thinking “Dang, this doesn’t look that bad. Actually, this looks like a whole lot of fun!” Then, this spring, I came upon the deal-maker for me to take of the quest of becoming a cyclocross racer. It was a legitimate reason to own yet another bike.
It was early summer when I announced to Rich that I wanted in the club. He said “Great! We can start doing intervals next week.” “Intervals?” I asked with a gulp. “Dammit man! I said I wanted to race cross, not ride intervals”. Rich then took the time to explain to me that while it might look like fun, racing cyclocross is a 45-minute suffer-fest. There is no peleton to hide in and no free laps when you flat. I spent the next 2.5 months trying to make myself puke on a bike while dreaming of being able to do a complete flying W over the bars into nice soft fluffy snow. Each time in my dream I bounced right back up and continued riding on.
The first of Sept came and Rich emailed me to inform that practice was starting and I needed to start doing cyclocross drills with the rest of the team. Since I have never be one to gracefully dismount a bike while it was moving, the concept of being shown the proper way to dismount and remount a bike at speed had some appeal. I showed up a practice, got the basics from the guys and started slow. Within 10 minutes, I was able to get off and back on while the wheels were actually rolling. I had never been able to do that in my entire life! Suddenly I am thinking that I am a fricken natural for racing cross. I knew I had mad dismount skills but never did I think I could actually do it without falling down! The boys decided to really push my talent and added in a barrier to jump. I cleared it easier than a deer clears the fence on the side of the interstate (just before it jumps in front of the semi). Then came the inevitable you-are-getting-too-big-for-your-bibs smackdown that everyone except me knew was going to happen. I come whizzing up to the barrier, uncliped the right leg, swung it around, and prepared to make Ryan Trebon proud that there is another big guy out there with mad cyclocross skilz. For added flair, I leaned my bike away from me while still having the left foot clipped in. I figured out how bad of an idea this was about the time I was in the middle completely losing balance. After 10 feet or so, a sliding pile of grass, dirt, bike and me came to a stop. Except for the large lump on my shin where kicked a pedal, I was unscathed! My only thought was "I fricken love this sport!". Later that day, I discovered a flaw in my overall bike set-up. See, my ass has been broken in to fit a Fizik Arione. I have that saddle on all my bikes. One of the features of an Arione is that it has a nice pointy rear-end that sticks out more than most other saddles on the market. This makes for some very nice bruising on the inside of the right thigh after you slam your leg into the saddle trying to remount and you don’t get your leg high enough. This also can result in a maneuver that I call the Flying Bike Prang (FBP). The Flying Bike Prang starts with you hitting the back of the saddle square with right thigh as you swing it over the bike. This immediately launches the bike ahead to the most extended portions of your grip. This is the Prang portion of the maneuver. It is then followed by your sprawled carcass falling to the effects of gravity and dropping into three contact points on your bike. These points being your right and left hands on the bars and the inside of your right thigh on rear tire. The maneuver is not complete until the rear tire grinds away a significant portion of flesh from the inner thigh and you drop to a quivering heap on the ground just thanking the stars that the tire tread did not find something else near by. There also is a variation of the Flying Bike Prang known as the Flying Bike Punt. This is where you hit the saddle with your leg hard enough to knock your steed completely out of your grip. This is the Punt portion of the event. The Flying Bike Punt is completed by one flying through the air, arms outstretched like Superman, right leg cocked like Capt. Morgan, and holding that pose until you pile face first into the dirt. The Flying Bike Punt is hard to perfect, but never fails to excite the crowd.
After 3 weeks of intervals, mounts, dismounts and a spectacularly painful Flying Bike Prang that I believe scarred me for life, the 22nd of September came. This was the date of the Pikes Peak Supercross. This was the day when my racing virginity was going to take a thrashing at the hands of the John Holmes of sport. Rich made sure we got there plenty early to get registered and pre-ride the course. Rich does his warm-ups on a trainer. I chose to warm-up by riding several laps on the course because I can’t stand to be on a trainer… even though I own two.
The course was a winding path that crossed back and forth across a river bottom and the layout went something like this. Start/Finish was on a flat stretch of dirt road. The dirt road turned pave and climbed to the top of the hill where the course veered left off the nicely paved road into some pasture so rough that cows were afraid of it. A 90 degree turn to the right then straight down into a gully where the course did a 180 and you had to dismount and crawl your way back out. Just to be cute, the course designer put a barrier at the top. The fricken goat path we were to follow then went back thru the cow pasture from hell, took a hard turn to the left and went back too the paved road which thankfully went down hill. This was a place where I was going to shine because at 6’4” and 215lbs, I am built to going downhill on paved roads. The problem with this section was that it was way shorter than I wanted it to be and it ended with a hard right-hander onto a single-track that was backed by a chain-link fence if you overshot it by more and a couple feet. The single track veered left and dropped off a steep embankment into a river bottom and onto another path that went over a bridge. Just past the bridge was a 90-degree turn to the right and went straight up another embankment. Just in case someone was badass enough to try and ride this; they put a barrier at the top. Then, somehow they found a piece of earth that was even rougher than the cow pasture from hell to ride us around on before we ended up on another gravel path. The high speed run on the gravel path ended with a double set of barriers and an immediate 90 degree turn to head back down into the river-bottom where it crossed another bridge and back up the embankment on the other side. This climb had no barrier so one could ride the whole thing. The loop ended with some more cow pasture, a double set of barriers, crossed another bridge and back to the start finish.
The time came for the Senior Men, 35 years of age and older, Category 4 (AKA Beer Drinking Dad League) race to commence. There was to be 29 of us toeing the line that day. Not wanting to scare anyone, I hid in the back with another friend who was racing cross for the first time as well. Rich took is rightful place up farther up. The chief ref gave us a warm welcome and informed us that we would be racing for 45 minutes. They would use the early lap times to estimate the number of laps we would run in 45 minutes and then use a lap counter to count those laps down to the finish. This whole, estimation thing has been a mystery to me but I figured that they knew what they were doing. My job was to ride until they told me to stop. This approach would come back to haunt me soon.
Before you can say “Bob’s your uncle”, the ref blows the whistle and we were off. No sooner that we hit the paved climb some little goat-boy hit the gas. Guys my size have no love for little bastards with huge power to weight ratios. As far as we are concerned, the only redeeming quality of these types of racers is the sheer hysterical laughter they induce when a crosswind hits them and they proceed to go careening off into the ditch at high speed. At the top of the hill there were some dicey moments when everyone needed to get into one line to get on the single path. Luckily, by the time all us fat guys got there, we had things pretty sorted out and we bombed into a giant cloud of dust across the cow pasture from hell. My race went well for the first half of lap one. Nothing but mild suffering and I managed to look like I knew what I was doing on the run-ups. At least that is what I kept telling myself. Things got interesting at the first high-speed double. We were still in quite a bit of traffic when the guy right in front of me tries to perform a Flying Bike Prang during his remount. Miraculously, he somehow pulls a half gainer out of it and lands back on both feet still beside his bike. However, by this time I had enough forward momentum going that I proceeded to run my front wheel right between his legs. We then went the next 10 feet with my wheel between his legs and him hopping along looking like a kid shuffling off to the closest porta-john trying to get rid to the turd that is half way into his underwear. Finally, I hit the brakes and let him away from my Taiwanese tire torture and we are both on our way. I finish lap one and roll thru start/finish at what I am sure is near DFL. The lap counter says 6 to go and I settle in for some suffering. Throughout the race I continually try to pick off a rider here and there. The laps are counting down…. 4…3…..2. and then comes race refs next little surprise. It seems we are going just too damn fast because when I come round for the bell lap…. It say 2 to go…..again! Sweet mother of God man! I am dying out here and you and can't see fit to make it the damn bell lap! Part way thru this lap I pass another racer. I get some distance but he comes back to me on the smooth sections. I push hard across the final cow pasture of death and get a gap that I think will stick. I go thru start/finish and hear bells of the local church ringing sweet music to call he home. OK, so it turned out to be the race ref ringing a hand-bell, but it was sweet music nonetheless. Time to bury it for the last lap. At the top of the paved hill I can heard a rider on my wheel. How I could hear him above my own wheezing is unknown, but I heard him. Somehow the last rider I passed had got back on my wheel in the smooth section. I bomb through the first cow pasture of death, flail off down the embankment, dismount, charge back up over the barrier and back onto the paved section. I never once looked back at the other guy. I already knew he was there, and there was no sense staring at him. This final time down the paved hill I decided against any recovery and hammer up thru the gears. Now came the hard part. I needed to get stopped and on the single track without impaling myself onto the chain-link fence. Somehow I kept it upright, and down off the embankment I went, cross the bridge and up the other side. Then it happened. On the remount at the top I pulled one of the largest Flying Bike Punts seen in 3 years. The bike went flying off to the right; I reached full superman extension with the right leg cocked, full-on Capt style. It felt like I was in the air long enough that I could have grabbed my ankle and pulled off a complete “sprinkler” dance maneuver. Out of my mouth came a long drawn out SHIIIIIIIITT that ended abruptly when I hit the dirt. I scrambled for the bike and just before I tried to remount again, I notice that the guy behind me never came around. I looked up to see that the whole time I had been running from a CAT 3 rider out doing his hot-lap before the next race. He was standing there nicely. Just waiting for my CAT 4 ass to get back on the bike. Humiliated and yet relieved, I tried to finish strong. I got thru start/finish and rolled back to the car. Along the way I thought to myself. "Damn, that was as fun as it looked last year when I watched it. And it hurt twice as bad as I thought it would. I can’t wait till the next race.
B. Graves….. AKA Tigger-in-Chains
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