Cross Racing in Bergan Park, CO - Not so fast there, Tex

I went to bed after watching the weather and knew that the racing was going to be epic. At 0800 then next day, both my cell phone and home phone rang at the same time. On the home phone, Rich was calling to say that his ankle is still hurting from twisting it during the Boulder/Interlocken race on Saturday and he is going to sit this one out. On the cell phone, Dash is calling to let me know he is going to be late getting to my place so that we can carpool to the race…. and oh, by the way, his knee is hurting from Saturday’s race and that he is just going up to provide moral support. I think they both just bruised their pussies and it manifested in an ankle and a knee.

Dash and I stop by KBC and pick up a couple cups of pre-race Java and a breakfast burrito. We say howdy/later to the KBC weekend regulars such as Jonny Grinder and Daryl Funk. No time to talk bikes today guys…. we are finally getting some cross weather and it’s time to go race!

Driving up Floyd hill and traffic is rolling along. I got the truck in 4wd but I am not pushing to hard as we will get there in plenty of time. Next thing ya know, the highway goes from wet and possible ice to pure ice and we are in a 4 wheel power slide. The rear-end of the truck comes around to the right and we are nearly sideways down the center lane of the interstate. I counter-steer into the slide and slightly over correct causing the rear-end to come back and slide to the left. I counter-steer back into the slide one more time and catch it just right this time. The whole time Dash is nerves of steel. He never even makes the slightest reach for the oh-shit handle on his side of the truck. It is over in a few seconds and we are still rolling up the road at 40 mph. Dash takes a sip of his coffee (he has be casually holding his cup during this whole event) and comments with a low key “Nice save.” In an effort to match Dash’s coolness, I try to look/act like I have done that a dozen times before. Not sure whether I pulled off the look or not but we sure got all the other traffic to slow down. Somehow I got us to the race with no further incidents

Needless to say, the conditions were epic and the race is a blast.

We check the results afterwards and I finish 10^th. Hell yeah, man! My very first top 10!!! I start looking down a bit farther and notice that the Scott’s exported Jackson terror, Tim Kelley is listed at 20^th. Uh oh, gotta get that fixed because we all know that Tim won the race. I roll over to the race ref, let him know of the problem, and give Tim a heads up as well. Then it hits me… I am going to have to hold off on that top 10 shit. I just got dropped to 11^th. Check out some of the other sites for more on the scoring this weekend. I agree with some of the comments on those sites. The scorers are doing the best they can with a manual system. Whether you have large fields with tons of lap traffic like Saturday or you have something like this race where we are racing in a driving snowstorm, they are not going to get everything perfect every time. As long as they get the top 20 correct, specially at a BCR/BCT race, that is all I can ask.

After the race, we got news about Chuck losing his battle with Cancer and the complications there after. Deep down, I think all of us knew it was coming so there was really nothing to react to. I really dislike anything that is not fair and cancer leads the list in that category. I fricken hate cancer. Hell, I thought that Lance Armstrong guy quit racing so that he could fix all this cancer bullshit. Why did it have to go and kill my friend?

The next race is in Boulder so I am sure the crowds will be back. Until then, if anyone needs high end Italian cycling shoes (DMT), stop by the booth at Veloswap. We are blowing them out this year!