West Hill Bike Shop CX in Putney is known as old school cyclocross.. Guys who've been racing cross for 25 years like Matt Domnarski know what "old school" is so when he says it's old school, then you know it's old school. Whatever the hell that means.. If it means long, nasty-steep run-ups, greasy corn fields, unnecessary extra set of barriers in the middle of a cornfield (UESOBITMOAC), sketchy downhills, and sub 6:00 minute laps, then OK, this was old school. Oh, and before I forget, if you're a 20-something Cat 3 hipster who is like 3 years out of high school, you have not earned the right to call anything old school. So comments like "Rad, dude! this is soooo old school" sound really dumb coming from you. Stop doing that.
I actually like courses like this because they are hard for me, technically, and I need work on that. Last time I raced here in 2007 I had a fantastic endo on the sketchy downhill when I ended up in a bad line. I followed that up with a crash into the steps when I came around the corner a little hot and didn't get clipped out in time. The day ended in a DNF for me. This was a day after winning the Vt Psycho Cross race. Talk about highs and lows. Today started ominously. I pulled into the parking lot with plenty of time to get in a couple quick laps before the 9am race started. I jumped out of the truck, got ready to ride in about 5 minutes, hopped over the tape with my bike and headed out on the course. I was parked 20 feet from the set of barriers, so I started riding, immediately had to unclip to hop the barriers, fumbled over the first one and kicked the second one which sent me and my bike flying. This was exactly 5 seconds into my first warmup lap. Garabed was parked right there and saw the whole thing. He yells, "Kevy! What was that?" Garabed calls me Kevy because he's old enough to be my father and is quite senile. But he's also an expert bike builder and mechanic and runs a great bike shop in downtown Nashua that everybody local should go to. I made a mental note that I'm really short and need to step higher over the barriers for the rest of the day to avoid the embarrassment of tripping over barriers and being called nicknames that I haven't been called since I was 5.
Prior to the start of the race I got to see the single most PRO thing I've ever seen at a cross race. I thought I was PRO with my pit bike, canopy, trainer for warmups, portable pressure washer, pre-race warmup kit and special (legal) exhilarating pre-race drinks and gels. But Dave Foley trumped everything I have ever seen when I walked past and he was sprawled out in a comfy lawn chair while somebody, who I can only assume was a specially trained cx optometrist, was leaning over Dave carefully installing Dave's contact lenses. Go ahead, let me see anybody beat that.
Quickly, a rundown of my less than stellar day. I had a decent start and ended up with the first selection of 9 or 10 guys that stayed together for the first 2 or 3 laps. The 3rd time through the runup my engine room yelled "Captain, she's gonna fucking blow!" and as I got clipped in at the top of the runup, with my engine room crew running for cover rather than throwing more coal on the fire, 9 guys started pedaling away from me as if they had absolutely no concern over how this would make me feel. For the record, it made me sad. I was happy that one guy wearing horizontal stripes stayed with me, but not so happy that he just sucked my wheel for a while as I bridged up to Steve Rosczko. Once I caught Steve (who I think Garabed calls, Stevie) we dropped the Dr. Seuss character and put about 10-15 seconds into him. I got in front of Steve and pulled for a lap. Once we got to the top of the runup I had absolutely nothing left and Steve went by me as we got the bell for last lap and approached the barriers. He went over clean and I decided to re-enact my warmup for the spectators, clipping the second barrier and going flying.. I quickly composed myself and got going again but this allowed the Lorax to catch me and Steve to open up a 10 second gap. We had a lot of lapped 55+ traffic to deal with on the last lap and I was going balls out trying to get back up to Steve. As we got to the sketchy downhill, there were a couple 55+ guys in front of me, one went outside the other went inside. I immediately pulled my cell phone out of my skinsuit and called my bookie to put $1000 on the guy who took the inside to endo spectacularly because it was a ridiculously bad line and nobody could come out of it on two wheels. But before I could get the bet in, the guy endo'd spectacularly. My first thought was that I hope I can handle a crash like that when I'm over 55. My grandkids will think that's so rad! Second thought was how much I appreciated him sacrificing himself to get out of my way in a bad line so I could try to catch Steve. But Steve was drilling it big time and there was no pulling him in. I was cooked and I couldn't shake the Cat in the Hat for the life of me, probably because he was on one of these and it was super smooth through the barriers and up the runup.
We came into the UESOBITMOAC, and having already surpassed my quota for successful remounts I bollixed the remount so badly that it took me about 5 seconds to get clipped back in which allowed the Mayor of Whoville to come by me while I spastically thrashed at my fucking pedals. One more time up the runup and the race came to a merciful end. I ended up 11th on the day.. If I was like most cyclists on a bad day (or even a decent day for most), I would have had a barrage of excuses when my coach called me and asked me what happened. But instead, and maybe I'm just not creative enough to come up with any really good excuses, my response was "I don't know, I was fucking slow."
Don't go yet, there was a very exciting discovery today. When I was in the West Hill Bike Shop after the race looking to buy things because shopping always makes me feel better, I came upon an awesome sticker. Apparently, the androgynous, footless, handless adult found in countless signs across the country helping children across crosswalks has taken to more intense exercise. Specifically, cyclocross. Unfortunately, nobody has trained the genderless cx neophyte in the finer points of the sport as it shoulders the bike on the drive side (major faux pas), but honestly this is minor compared to the fact that the androgyne uses a bike without drive train, which I guess makes some sense, since while running the bike around the course on its footless legs it would make sense that the bike should be as light as possible. Regardless, I bet it could have hopped the barriers better than me today.....
