The legend of 9er the whiner.

Its been awhile since the dude has even worn spandex, so Ill just keep the stories going. This dude starts working as a messenger and wins an alleycat race. He goes pretty fast. He comes on a group ride on his touring bike and puts the hurt on all of Team Kraynick's. I think he had full fenders on a 27lb bike and I dug deep to drop him on the steep cobbles climbing out of East Pittsburgh (now paved).

A year later we are racing in spandex all the time. We drove like 8 hours to Bristol Mountain Road Race in New York. 30 dollar hotel, right next do a diner that opened at 5 am with 3 dollar pancakes. sweet.

The dude running the race says to the 50(?) or so Cat 3's lined up "umm I guess it doesnt have to be neutral to the first climb... you can solo away out of the parking lot if you want." THE WHINER DOES!

I want to say our road race was 55 miles with like 10 miles of climbing and the whiner totally soloed the whole race. Some guy tried going with him but couldnt hang. Impressive to say the least. I was stoked cause my shifter broke and I was stuck in either 53x12 or 39x12. Not sweet. I still remember some rich kid on a carbon Kuota (forever in my mind as a bike for rich Espoirs).. kept yelling at me for no reason other than he wasnt going to win. What a lamer..

The bummer of the story is when he crashed going 9 mph and broke his femur right at the ball joint. He made the best of the situation and is pretty happy now I would say. Forever a legend to me and anybody he rode with for sure.