The Title is No Title

Living in the Netherlands has definitely dulled my senses in a few ways, one of which being that I definitely don’t feel clausterphobic here. This place is so flat that during long road rides I routinely mistake tree-lines in the distance for upcoming hills. I get excited at the prospect of winding up and down some climbs to break up my ride only to find myself shooting straight through a harvest forest and out the other side before I have a chance to be disappointed by the lack of even a rise.

Having said that, I do thoroughly enjoy riding in the Netherlands. There’s always a town nearby – whether it be for a coffee, beer, appleflap (“met slagroom – ‘turlick!”, or a bike shop to fix your 3rd flat of the ride. Don’t even get me started on the bike paths here – absolute heaven. And with the abundance of roads in all directions I have an endless choice of routes for each ride.

So this past weekend I did my 3rd cyclocross race of a local series. Due to my past performances I decided I should REALLY get there early so I could pre-ride the course and hopefully keep up with the competition. I have come to the conclusion I am destined – yes DESTINED – to never be early for anything let alone on time for it. I swear – I’m going to be late for my own funeral (that’s not a bad thing, is it?).

I had my bag packed the night before, I had me alarm set early, I even made it out the door on schedule this time – so what the fuck went wrong? Fog. Thick, pea-soup fog. I had to drive so slowly it was torture. Then when I was only 10km from my friends place another thorn in my side: bridge construction. And they hadn’t put up the detour signs yet, so I had to strike out across the countryside on my own to find my way. Daring as I was, we still made it to the race about 20 minutes before the start – enough time to check in, change, and pre-ride at least ½ the course (a record for me).

Again on the start line my friend was pointing out all the riders I hadn’t seen before: “ohhhh – he came 4th at the Dutch Junior Championships this year”, “wow – he’s on a trade team from Amsterdam”, “and don’t forget the regular crew of guys to compete with”. Great – I was starting to get excited. And for the first time in years it happened – I was so nervous at the start line of a race that I started yawning. It’s really weird and I don’t know the explanation for it – some people have to pee, others have an upset stomach, still others need to listen to Ramstein – I don’t, I just start yawning. And it’s not like 1 or 2 yawns and I’m done – it’s a solid 5-10 minutes of it right up until the gun goes off!

And when it did this time I was in trouble. We were late and there were a lot of guys, so we started on the second row. Leading into the first corner I was in about 10th spot – not an ideal position on such a tight course. I pulled my regular routine where I started passing guys to try to keep contact with the leaders, but as usual I found myself working too hard just to make up for a bad start – and this time there was a group of 5 that had taken off the front.

I chased and I chased and I chased, and when I wanted some variety I chased for a while. And it worked: the lead group had splintered into 3 at the front and the 2 in front of me, and I had dropped the rest of the field. But things weren’t going all that great – the course was a little muddy from the week of rain and I hadn’t had much cyclocrossing in these conditions. On one lap alone I had 3 stand-stills (2 due to contact with trees) and about ½ a dozen near misses. But about 35 minutes into the race I was able to catch and pass one more guy, so that left me in 5th, and I soon passed another to move into 4th. With about 10 minutes to go I caught up to the 3rd place rider who wouldn’t let me pass. Not a big deal though, since I wouldn’t be able to catch the leaders anyway, and nobody was catching up to us, so I just sat back and figured I’d ride his wheel to the end and then take off for the finish line. Race Strategy Note: don’t ever do this again.

So with about ½ a lap to go I was getting ready to make my move when a mere moment of inattention changed things – my left pedal cranked a stump in the grass, tossing my bike to the other side of the trail and dropping my chain. All the cursing in the world couldn’t put it on fast enough, and when I was finally up and ready to go again the other guy had taken off – he’d seen what happened and realized that was his chance.

So I crossed the line in 4th place, with the strong junior winning the race in a sprint against the regular guy who beat me in the other races.

Still – a very fun race in tricky conditions.
To make my weekend complete I went for an MTB ride on Sunday with the guys from Marco Polo Cycling – but about 1 hour into the ride my front tire flatted. Not normally a problem, but when you’ve got tubeless tires you know it’s something bad (not to mention those tires are on there TIGHT!!!). After destroying 2 tubes trying get the tire back on we realized my ride was over, so I had to ride the rim home….ouch.

Oh well, c’est la vie, non?