bike racing. bike racing. bike racing.

Real bike racing:

If you have not been watching the Giro, you should catch up. World Cycling Channel 2 on youtube is amazing. Stages 7 and 8 had the excitement of the classics, but were in the middle of a grand tour. Amazing.


Other bike racing:
Saturday
Did the legendary Poolesville race near DC. The race is characterized by a 1.4 mile dirt road every lap, for seven laps. By dirt, they mean gravel. Note to self: when a race is "characterized" by something, whether its a hill or a certain stretch of road, it would make sense to check that bit of the course out beforehand. The first lap I was kind of amazed by the road that we were on. Pretty awesome.

Rowley looked good, and I think the course suited him. So where do you ride to avoid crashes? At the front right? There was break right in front of us, some super strong dude started drilling it, then totally stacked it. He was on the front and he crashed. Bummer. Killed the chase a good bit too.

Otherwise the race was cool. It is not fun being up against teams of super strong dudes when they all have 5-9 guys. It is almost as unfair as deep carbon wheels.
Anyway.

I dont want to talk smack on a stupid blog, but Joe Whitman rode like a total stud. He almost brought the break back on his own. I did some chasing and attacking, but Joe bossed that. There was a PRO dude who missed the break who did not see wind until 3 miles to go. I dont really care, but he yelled at me at one point to close a gap. Maybe it is a game he plays with himself to see how long he can go until actually seeing wind (even after missing the move) and I forced him to lose against himself. Whatever.


yeah we stopped at mother truckers

Sunday
Went to Ohio for an OMBC mountain bike race at The Wilds. I got second there last year and thought that I could maybe win. I would really like to win a bike race at some point. Anyway, it was for sure not my course. Tons of roots and rocks. Like afterward, dudes who are like mountain bike racers with hairy legs and stuff were saying that it was technical, which made me feel better about myself.

Anyway, rode with the front group for most of the race. Me and another dude, Ben Ortt. I dab, he rides away. He had the place dialed and was riding way smooth. I had to ride alone for like 5 miles maybe, and hit maybe 45% of the trees during that time. I was just trying to chase him back, and was trying in a way that was not smooth, and not successful. Oh well. Lost by 12 seconds or so. The dude that beat me was a good dude. At one point I took the long way where a trail split, and he took the short, he totally waited up for the 5 seconds I had to bridge up.