Anything else?

I rolled down below the 45 this weekend for the state road race, and realized why I like mountain biking.

First some guy decides he needs to be four feet to the right, except that I'm about two feet to the right. Somehow I stay up, but now my front wheel is out of true and hitting the brake. I open it up and hope it lasts, but it doesn't. So I head back to our wheel car, manned by a single guy in a sling, and manage the worst change ever before chasing back into the wind.

Then some 250lb punk kid that apparently knows more about cycling than I do tells me to "shut the f--k up." My sin? Telling him that if he wants someone to pull through, he has to pull off. We had a short discussion after that. Mostly me saying, "are you serious?" followed by him going off on me for a minute or so. By the time he's done and I say, "ok, have a nice race" we're about 50m off the back. I get on easily; he has a bit harder time.

Then we manage to force a split, and there are 5 of us with about a 2 or 3 minute gap. There's two guys on one team, but it looks like I'm the best combo of legs and brains, so I'm feeling pretty good about my chances. There's no way we're getting caught. So what do we do? We take the wrong turn on a slightly confusing corner and by the time we figure it out and get headed back the correct direction, we're a half mile behind the rest of the group. We catch back on pretty quickly and roll through the detritus, but now the lead group is 8 or 9, including the teammate of a guy that was in the original lead group, which means he probably hasn't seen the wind and hasn't worked in 20 miles. Oh yeah, the wind was blowing about 20mph, so it wasn't a Sunday stroll to force the split and keep it open.

With about 5k to go, I feel the first twinge of a cramp. It passes quickly, and I'm still rolling ok, so I try to ignore it. With 1k to go, we finally pick up the pace. I mark the first move at 500m, and then mark the second. With 200m to go, I start to move around him. He actually looks over, sees me, and swerves three feet to the right. I hold him off with my arm, manage to stay out of the gravel, but lose a lot of momentum. Right as I start it up again, a guy goes hard up the left. I can't catch his wheel, and he takes first by a bike length or so. I take 2nd easily, well ahead of any of the guys in the first lead group. The guy that won was the teammate of our initial companion. Other than me, none of the first group were anywhere close.

Had we not gone off course, I probably would have walked away with the win by 20m.

Perhaps the most amusing, annoying, and in some ways simplifying aspect of the race was the guy that marked every single move. Every one. He would mark each move and then just sit on. I tried twice and we had big gaps, but he just sat on. I got a bit pissed once because he was obviously strong and we could have stayed away, but he'd just mark and sit. So I stopped doing anything. He was in the lead group with me, and he marked every move and I just followed. Then he was the guy that almost took me out in the sprint and ended up well back.

In any event, I shouldn't be too upset with 2nd. But I'm starting to wonder if I'm just not meant to be a roadie.