what I learned

Oh my fucking gawd. I just raced my first cross race. Jeezus H. Chrrrriiiiist. I thought I was in pretty good shape. I can ride miles on the road. Let me assure you, riding through the mud is nothing like riding on pavement.

The day before the race I attended a women's only cross clinic lead by a woman named Arley. She rides for Hub Racing and is pretty much kicking butt at every race this season. It was a nice opportunity to get on the course ahead of time. We went through step by step, examining the different turns, hills and barriers and got not only good advice, but also the chance to try it out a couple times. I met a lovely woman named Jen who was also riding for the first time. My only gripe was the complete lack of unity amongst the women attending the clinic. I think there were alot of young women who were very concerned about looking good, at the expense of putting themselves out there a bit and supporting one another. A couple of us were keeping the comments positive but at one point I was waiting for my turn to try a hill and I heard two girls in front of me talking shit on a girl who had fallen and was having a hard time getting going again. Kinda puts a damper on things. Overall though, it was worth it to have a couple familiar faces the next day at the race.

Race Day. Danny, Steve, Elliot (who charitably let me borrow his bike) Chris and two of his friends from Philly were racing and it was really rad to ring the cowbell and scream for them. It was also a great chance to watch people riding the course and get some more ideas. I swear, I tried very hard to chicken out. Very hard. I came within inches of not racing. Some horrible idea of pride popped into my head though and I ended up shelling out the $40 bucks to do it. Of course, once the money is laid down it would be folly to not race. I'll steer clear of a full race report and just tell you that I almost died. My lungs were burning in my chest. My legs felt fine, but my cardio was absolute shite. Arley lapped me at some point and at the back section of the course my chain decided to crap out and get lodged in between the chainring and the chain guard. While I was unsticking it I watched about 7 ladies fly by me, which was incredibly disheartening, especially since they were women I had just passed. On the next lap I yelled at Elliot about the problems and he met me over at the pit. The woman supervising asked me if I planned to quit. I seriously considered it for a full 2 seconds before screaming 'fuck no!' and taking off again to complete my final lap. Coming in to the home stretch I saw Jen up ahead of me and started sprinting towards the finish, intent on beating her across the line. As I came up beside her we both yelled "Go!" to each other and finished almost wheel for wheel. I thought she'd beat me until I looked at the final results and realized I had inched by right at the line. Overall, I finished 30th out of 44, but there might have been some problems with the results because a coworker of mine definitely finished before me but was somehow behind me in the results. So, post race, and in preperation for the next one, here's some things I need to remember.

1) Get a strong start. I dawdled a little in the beginning and ended up behind some women that fell down on a hill that I could have ridden all the way up. Also, I was maintaining pace with women that were ahead of me because they got up front early on. Thats good thinking.

2) I need to work on my cardio. Burning lungs is bad.

3) Don't drink beer right after the race, especially when dehydrated. I had one beer and got completely shit hammered. I was talking to my old boss and realized that I didn't remember the last 5 minutes of conversation. Ooops.

4) Its going to hurt. Cyclocross hurts.

5) Race your own race. I planned on completing two laps, but I actually did 4. I am very proud of that.

In a nutshell, I would describe it as one of the worst experiences of my life, so naturally I've just pre-registered for the All Hallows Race happening this coming weekend.


Jen and I sprint for the finish.

bienvenue

I moved to Washington DC almost exactly a year ago. When I first moved here, I hated it. It took me months to peel back the layers of what on the surface appeared to be a fairly artless, soul-less, bikeless town. About three months in I started meeting some amazing folks who introduced me 'real DC'. Not the phony touristy crap or the government office DC, but the parts of this city where art, community and cultures are thriving. Of course, most of it was done from the view of a bicycle.

Since I was initially unsure how long I was going to stay here, I didn't ship my bike when I first came. Just me, my backpack and my dog. A month later, I was sick and tired of hoofing it, and even more fed up with shelling out the cash for constant metro fares. When my little lady arrived, it was to my infinite relief and I put her together ASAP. Lacking a pedal wrench and needing a slight bit more expertise, I rolled into one of the local shops and had two exceedingly nice mechanics help me out. Later in my bike career in DC, both of these people would crop up again at suprising times.

Bike back between the legs (where it properly belongs), I set about riding as much as possible, trying to learn a town that although set on a really easy grid system, is still fairly easy to get lost in. I also found myself demoted from bike messenger (in Portland, OR) back to bike commuter again as I rode out to the suburb of Bethesda, Maryland everyday during the month of December as I was selling Christmas trees (yes, it rocked). This is also when I first started riding on the Capital Crescent Trail, which is still one of my favorite rides around town. It was on this trail that I saw my first cardinal. During December I started to meet more folks, including a tall drink of water named Danny, whose friendship introduced me to more bikey folks and also clued me in to more of the bike scene here. Shortly after meeting Danny he invited me to a cyclocross race, which is where I met a friend of his named Chris. My pup Jack and I cheered them on rang the cowbell. This is also where I met (again) one of the mechanics who helped me put my bike together.

Here Danny takes one of the tighter turns. It was a frigid cold, but sunny day. After living in Portland for years, I was totally unused to this type of winter and was wearing just thin trainers. My feet almost froze to the ground, but I had fun.











Since then, I've met a myriad of people and become more and more involved with bikes
here. Chris is now a good buddy and helped me get hired at City Bikes, a small shop in Adams Morgan where he used to work. At the same I started working there, a female wrench was hired, who turned out to be the other mechanic who helped me reassemble my bike. As much as I miss being on my bike all day, there is something to be said for working in either the air conditioning or heating of a shop.



This is a year that I'm also trying to step up my more serious cycling side. Aside from dallying around with road, cross and track racing in the past, I have decided to really commit to the upcoming road season and race at least a couple cyclocross races this season. I just spent a month riding around France and I've been trying to lay down as many base miles as possible, interspersed with some intervals. I feel strong, but I also feel I have alot of work to do. I'm hoping that with a little cross under my belt, and lots of miles at Hains Point, I'll face the next year even stronger, and definitely more knowledgeable, than the previous year.