Tuesday, September 28, 2010

The Gentle, Golden Promised Land

Boom! Racing update now!

Since I became one of the best Madison racers in the state, I've had a new perspective, looking down on all the little people, huddled in their masses, yearning for greatness. Well. I can tell you all: it is great, and it tastes so sweet.

The greatness continued with more track racing. First was some Friday night racing right in the midst of a hefty training block. I sucked bad in my first ever keirin, but got my sweet revenge in the 6x5 points race, taking off about 2 laps in, snatching the first points, and then grabbing them here and there with the four guys that bridged up to me. I wound up 3rd, but I was pleased. Jamie Stangeland is so fast.



The next day was the International Omnium. It consisted of a flying 200, scratch, pursuit, points, and kilo in that order. Despite awesome racing weather, the men's field wound up with a whole nine racers. Most were pretty beat from racing 12 hours earlier, and it only took a 12.2 for me to win the 200. The scratch and points races were raced pretty negatively. A move went in the scratch and I wound up on the wrong end, getting 5th. In the points race, it was clear that no one wanted to let me attack without them, so I just played sprinter, and won it, along with the kilo and pursuit, so I won the overall.

(my lil' steed ready for some HIGH OCTANE PURSUITING!!!!)

That was the last racing before Elite Track Nats this week in LA, so I just kept busy training and getting ready for the last race of the season. Benny came up from Portland to race Starcrossed last weekend and stayed with me for a few days. We managed to get out on a ride through the Snoqualmie Valley, my new favorite training grounds.

(Benny on Carnation Farm Rd)

(Heidi Biggs made us this custom huckleberry-vanilla cupcake at Cupcake Royal!!)

(A lady on the street handed me this fortune cookie with what might be the
most disappointing fortune I've ever received: a crummy commercial.)


Ben headed off to Las Vegas for Interbike, while I kept getting ready for LA. One day, it was raining a LOT during my ride. My Ridley comes with the cool design feature of not having a drain for water that finds its way into the frame, so this is how you get the water out.



Two days ago, I started the drive down, and now I'm in The Wasteland itself! Here are some photo/video highlights:

(Rainbow coalition of trucks outside of LA)

(California includes a little moral judgment with their legal reminders)

(The Baloona Creek Bike path. If it looks familiar, it's because it's where Keanu Reaves did this.)


(The cool thing to do was make Inukshuks along the creek.)





Sorry for the tiny video. I took it with my cell phone while riding on the track during a motor pacing session. The derny was scary and I kept looking back to see if it was going to run me down. Luckily it didn't, although I almost did it's work for it: apparently the fall-down speed at this track is 18mph, which is about what I was doing when I was spinning around the blue line. Oops. I got lucky though. That would have been a great way to kick of my Track Nats debut.

More later. I race the Scratch on Thursday, the Pursuit on Friday, and the Points on Saturday.

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