A Slice of Humble Pie with Whipped Cream and a Cherry

I raced the Charlotte Mountain Bike Series last night. I crashed 4 times. Well, 5 if you include when I fell over before the race by losing my balance while standing still. I couldn’t get my stupid shoe unclipped. I guess technically, I laid the bike out twice, crashed twice, and fell over like a dumbass once.

We haven’t had significant rain in Charlotte in several weeks and the course was showing it. The corners were mostly loose sand so navigating some of the sharper ones was a little tough. I laid out the bike twice in 2 such corners. Maybe those aren’t really regarded as crashes, but both me and my bike were on the ground, so call it what you want. Also, I was warned before the race of a new bridge that had been built that wasn’t quite right yet. I was told to beware of the tree on the inside corner because as you approach it, it looks like you’ll clear it, but at the last moment you realize because of that tree, you can’t lean your bike into the turn. Insert my first crash. On the first lap. I didn’t pre-ride the course, so I wasn’t familiar with this obstacle. I hopped onto the bridge, saw the tree and the off camber slope of the wood planks and thought, “What’s the big deal?” Then my handlebar hit the tree and I endo-ed off the bridge. As I pulled myself back onto the bike, I laughed at myself for not heeding the warning better.

At the time of that crash, there was one girl, Suna, with me in the lead of the race. By the time I got myself situated back on my bike, she had drawn to within 10 seconds of me. And she stayed there the whole race keeping me in a constant state of panic. I don’t think I ever got more than a 30 second gap on her, so on the second lap I had to play it smart. I had to go fast enough to keep the gap, but not push myself so hard that I crashed again. If I crashed, there was a good chance Suna would close the gap and I’d lose the race. So I spent the whole second lap telling myself, “Don’t crash, Winterton, don’t crash.” Side note, when I say my own last name in my head, it comes out as “winnerdin” which is how my brothers football coach used to get his attention back when we were kids, “Hey, Winnerdin! What are you doin’?” Weird that it has stuck with me all this time.

The last and worst crash came just before the finish. I was about 4 minutes away from winning my second mountain bike race of the season when my left wrist, handlebar, and brake/gear lever slammed full on into a rather hefty tree a full speed. There I was, flying over the handlebar…again. Once I finally hit the ground and came to a complete stop, I picked up the bike, keeping an eye behind me. I could hear Suna, but not see her. I jumped on the bike and took off like I stole something. I just had to get into the last singletrack section first. She wouldn’t be able to pass me in there. I sprinted on the short road section. I felt like she was right on my wheel, but a glance back and I didn’t see her as I entered the final section. As I finished the race, I could still hear her bike behind me rattling over the rooty course.

I’m pleased with the race. I had to work for the win. Suna put up a great chase. I could do without the crashing, though. The damage - a nice zinger on my left calf and right shin and small scrapes up and down my arms. More importantly, my bike ended the day with a bent brake lever and busted gear indicator. Oh, well, that’s bike racin’, right?

Tour de France: The Soap Opera

If you’ve never watched the Tour de France before, you need to watch this year. Only 3 Stages in and this years Tour is already heads and tails better than the previous 3 versions (except perhaps Floyd’s comeback victory in 2006, but that one’s now been erased). By comparison, last year’s Tour was a month long snooze-fest. But, this year, Team Astana is back. Contador is back. Lance is back. And the drama is back.

When Versus coverage of the Tour started at 8:30AM last Saturday with Lance declaring, “Oh, yeah. I’m here to win,” I got chills and realized, man I’ve missed this guy more than I thought. Watching him in the Individual Time Trial, I found myself hoping he would scorch everyone. Those 20 minutes while he was on course had me pacing my living room and shouting at the TV (and I usually save TV shouting for football season). He didn’t scorch everyone. He wasn’t even best on his team. He wasn’t even second or third best on his team. Perhaps he really did come to the Tour to support Contador? Lance as a domestique in Le Tour? That thought makes me nauseous. Then Contador set the best time in the ITT for Astana. I took some Pepto to settle my stomach.

Stage 2 – pretty much a formulaic sprint stage won by Cavendish. It would be more of a surprise if he didn’t win. Then, stage 3 comes. Which, by and large, was expected to be another formulaic sprint stage. And for most of it, it was. When Phil Liggett and Paul Sherwin start explaining why French flamingo’s are white and not pink, or why the long horn bulls we’re looking at provide the best beef in the world, you know the stage has gotten to it’s boring point and there will be no action until the last few kilometers of the stage. So, you sit and wait.

And wait I did. I was writing random thoughts for this blog when I heard Phil Liggett’s familiar excitement. “There’s a gap! They’ve got a gap!” What? Who’s got a gap? “The peloton has been caught out. Team Columbia has turned the screw into the cross wind.” I looked up to find the entire Columbia HTC team in an echelon powering them selves into the wind. They were pushing so hard that a time gap opened up to 30 seconds. And, holy shit, Lance is with them…and he has 2 teammates with him! More holy shit – Contador missed the move, as did most of the favorites. What the hell is Columbia doing? There’s 30k to go yet. They must be pissed about something. I did not take my eyes off the screen for the duration of the race. By the end, the break had 41 seconds on the peloton – a significant gap on what was supposed to be a sprint stage. My breathing returned to normal and I basked in the glow of Lance’s unmatched ability to read a race. Have I mentioned I’ve missed this guy?

Whether the “duel” between Lance and Contador is contrived by the media or not, the drama of it all has already made this Tour one of the best in recent times. Today is the Team Time Trial. Astana is the heavy favorite to win. There is a high likelihood that Lance could end the day in yellow. Did he attack Contador yesterday? I personally don’t think so. This wouldn’t be the first time Contador read a race wrong. Lance didn’t make much of it after the race when he said (I’m paraphrasing here) – when the entire Columbia-HTC goes to the front, and you know your about to hit the wind, you have to expect they are up to something and damn, you better be at the front when it happens.

Well, there you go. It’s like Days of Our Lives. Except without Alison Sweeny’s teary eyes, illegitimate children (as far as we know), and the hair is shaved from the men’s legs instead of their chest.

PostSecret Cyclist Hater

According to the website, PostSecret is an ongoing community art project where people mail in their secret anonymously on one side of a postcard. It was started by Frank Warren as an experiment and has grown into a worldwide phenomenon that has turned Mr. Warren into a best-selling author and a highly sought after speaker. I visit the website every week to see which new secrets have been posted. Today I saw this gem:

I had to snicker a little when I read it because, in my experience, when I ride on Sunday’s it always seems to be the people with a Jesus fish sticker on their car that cause the most problems and this secret just confirmed it for me. My most recent incident was only a couple of Sunday’s ago. I almost ended up in the Catawba River after a pick-up truck with a Jesus fish came WAY too close to me on the Wilkinson Boulevard bridge (despite 2 open lanes of traffic without another soul on the road) and sent me swerving into the barrier. I was able to keep the bike upright, but when I experience an incident like this, I tend to think things like, “How about some good will toward men throughout the year and not just on Christmas, asshole.” Then I wonder if they are on their way to church or on their way home from church. And if they are on their way home, exactly what was said at the church service that has made this person so angry at me that they’d like to make an attempt on my life? Or, if they are not going to church at all today, do they even deserve to display their fish?

I’m glad this person submitted their secret for me to see. It makes me feel better about revealing mine: I’m prejudiced against people who display their faith, but don’t practice their faith – especially in considering that one commandment about not killing others.

For crying out loud, find the source of your anger, deal with it and quit taking it out on cyclists – surely you can see the ridiculousness of yourself when a person on a bicycle sparks enough rage within you that you’re ready to kill or seriously injure them. And if you can’t, you may want to take that Jesus fish off your car – cuz you certainly aren’t Christian.