In the parking lot I put my bike together, pumped up my tires, and would have liked to lube my chain (I seemed to remember it needing it by the end of Saturday's ride), but couldn't find the lube in my car. Oh well. I set about trying to look like I knew what I was doing, which was hard, because I had a million questions.
"Where's registration?"
"How much is it?"
"Who do I make the check out to?"
"I don't want to go first, I don't know the rout."
"Is the rout marked?"
"Then how will I know where I'm going?"
"Where's the start?"
"How do I get there?"
"Is it marked?"
"Then how will I know where I'm going?"
"Oops, no, I was not born yesterday. Oh, today's the 16th, not the 15th? Sorry. What? You wanted my BIRTHDAY on that line? I'm 25."
In the half hour or so we had before the start a kind girl named Dawn took me out to ride the first half of the course. She tried to talk to me, but I couldn't hear what she was saying and there was too much traffic to ride side-by-side. I pulled up next to her to try hear something she said, then moved ahead. Then I lead her RIGHT into a pothole. "Aw, shit, fuck!" she yelled as she swerved onto the grass at the side of the road. Oops. I apologized profusely, but I think she wanted to be rid of me after that. We stopped so that she could pee in the woods, she described the rest of the turns to me, and we rode back to the start. Without talking.
The starting line was a stop sign on a busy street, so everyone waited in a driveway a hundred yards from the intersection until their number was close. Dawn was number 2, so she was already at the start waiting to leave, but there were another half dozen or so women standing in the driveway amid a whole mess of fast-looking men. There were a couple of "recreational"-looking triathletes (read: chunky), and a couple of crazy-fast-looking women in Team Psycho skinsuits. And one was riding... a pink bike! I knew immediately who she was from a comment Iron Matron left on my Patriot Half race report:
Finally, you have to remember that in Patriot you had just done one of the very fastest bike splits of the day. You beat everyone--including Bob (actually, no I didn't), including some elites, and including Cunt on a Pink Bike--a former elite and likely the one you saw in pink on the bike. I know she has a pink racing bike.
I didn't remember seeing her at the Patriot, but this must be her. I looked at her face, she put on a Faster-Than-Thou gameface and looked away.
A volunteer pulled me out of my reveries. "Which AIDS ride was that?" It took a second to realize she was talking to me. I was wearing my AIDS LifeCycle jersey.
"Which AIDS ride was that?" she repeated. I told her and we chatted for a minute. She'd done it years ago, back when it was the California AIDS ride; back when there was the scandal about the organizers paying themselves 6-figure salaries and only donating 16% to the foundation. (Don't worry, donors, it's under different management now.)
I guess I got a little too distracted.
"NUMBERS 3 AND 4!!! NUMBERS 3 AND FOOOOOUR!" the Cunt on a Pink Bike was yelling like she owned the place.
"Oh shit! That's me!" I said and rolled over to the line.
When I rolled past her she was still yelling, "NUMBERS THHHHHREEEEEEE AND FFFFFFFFOOOOOUUUUUURRRR!"
"Number 4, I'm coming, I'm coming!" I said as I rolled by her. Guess I was wearing my invisible cap.
"NUMBERS! THREE! AND! FOUR!" Who did this bitch think she was? She wasn't even working the event.
I watched as they grabbed the back of Number 3's seat, put their legs on either side of his wheel, and counted down for him. Then he was gone. I had 30 seconds.
"You're going to want to clip in before we let you go," said the kindly bike geek working the start. I recognized him from the bike shop.
"Okay," I said, and stepped on my pedal... and rolled away. "Sorry."
"You're going to want to HOLD ON TO YOUR BRAKES as you stand up," the volunteer guy advised me. "Eddie already knows the course. He doesn't need you dragging him along the whole thing."
Oops.
I managed to get on my bike before the countdown, and when they set me free I realized I was in WAY too hard a gear. I rolled off at about half a mile an hour, very aware that the Cunt on a Pink Bike was right behind me and had witnessed the whole thing. I'm such a tool!
The course was a 9.75-mile, flat (not Florida flat, but flat enough) course. The pavement was pitted at times, but for the most part it was pretty good. I'm no good with this max effort stuff, so I took it out as hard as I could, then scaled back when I thought I'd maxed out. When I felt like I could breathe again I would push harder. I was heaving like I haven't breathed in a long time. My mouth got that phlegm-y feeling that happens when you're thirsty and working too hard. I was sweating like a pig and sweat was dripping off of me everywhere: my chin, my elbows, my knees, my forearms... I don't waste any extra energy hanging on to my aerobars, and a couple of times I rode over some holes in the road that threatened to throw me off my bars. Once I actually WAS kicked hard enough to lose contact with the elbow pads and swerved pretty badly.
About halfway through I passed Dawn. She passed me back on a slight incline, but then I got back in front of her and she was gone. Actually, she was gone rather quickly, and I wonder what happened to her, since there's no one named Dawn in the results. I was having a lot of problems shifting. I kept having to over-shift a gear and then shift back. It was really fucking me up. I just felt like I was always in the wrong gear, which doesn't help when your legs are screaming and you can't breathe as it is. Then, at about mile 7 I hit a divot that almost knocked my teeth out. After that something didn't feel right. I could hear something rattling and wondered if maybe I got a flat tire. But no, if I had a flat tire I wouldn't be going this fast. Whatever it was, it was slowing me down though (just not as much as a flat). I could just FEEL that my power was disappearing SOMEWHERE into my bike. I listened closely, sometimes I leave a tube of Nuun tabs in my bento box and they rattle like hell, but the sound wasn't coming from my bento box.
In the last .75 miles you have to climb a hill. Not a big one, but enough so that you notice when you've already been redlining it for 20 minutes. Whatever was wrong with my bike was not helping this climbing situation, dammit! I crossed the finish line in 26:01.5, averaging 22.48 mph. I was pretty happy with that considering the issues I'd been having with my gearing and whatever the hell that was that was rattling. I rode around a traffic island and then a parking lot until I got my heartrate and breathing under control, then I came to a stop behind the officials at the starting line.
A moment after I stopped, the Cunt on a Pink Bike came in, waving her aerobar. Something wasn't right with this picture. It took me a moment to figure out that the thing had broken clean off and was hanging by her shifter cable.
"You're an animal, Cunt on a Pink Bike!" someone yelled (only they didn't call her that, of course).
I took another good look at my bike: tires weren't flat, bento box was empty, brakes weren't rubbing, everything looked alright. I rode around for a minute or two to clear the shit out of my legs, and then decided that there was no reason to wait around. The problem was that I was about a mile from my car and had no idea how to get back. I looked around. The only people who were standing around who WEREN'T serving some kind of function at the finish line were the Cunt on a Pink Bike and her man friend. I had no choice. I rode up to where they were standing and stood in that obvious way you do when you're trying to get someone's attention.
"...I'm going to fucking kill him," Cunt on a Pink Bike was saying. "How does an aerobar break?! I couldn't even shift..." and she went on and on like that for minutes, ignoring my obvious presence. Was I wearing my invisible cap again? I doubted whether these were the people to ask, but there was no one else around and, although she didn't know it, I'd already beat this bitch once before. The way she was talking you would think this was the Olympic trials, not some Wednesday night local ride, and that whoever was the last person to touch her bike had done this on purpose. I mean, that sucks that her bar broke, but it didn't suck THAT bad, not like the way she was talking.
Finally she ran out of things to blame on other people, and her man friend turned his attention to me.
"Excuse me, I'm so sorry to interrupt, I just... do you know the way back to the car?"
Cunt on a Pink Bike continued to look straight ahead, as if no one else were there. As if she had merely stopped bitching because she had run out of things to say, and this insignificant speck of dirt that her man friend was talking to were not even worth a turn of the head.
"You mean the parking lot?" the man friend said. Then he proceeded to give me detailed directions back to the parking lot. We must have been talking for a couple of minutes, and in that time NOTHING in Cunt on a Pink Bike's demeanor gave the slightest hint that she was aware that I was alive.
I wanted to say, "You were at Patriot, right? Yeah, I thought so. I remember passing you. I recognized your bike," even though I don't actually remember passing her. I DID beat her by 4:00, though.
"We're just going to grab our bottles and ride back ourselves in a minute if you want to follow us," said the kindly man friend who clearly recognized me as a living, breathing being.
I flicked my eyes over Cunt on a Pink Bike for a quick second, "No thanks, I think I can find it," I said. Then I looked down, and right then was when I spotted the problem with my bike: the quick release on my front wheel had popped open. No wonder it had been rattling and I'd felt like I lost so much speed! "Oh shit, THAT'S what was rattling the last 2 miles!" I said and leaned over to flip it shut.
"Be careful! That's dangerous!" said the man friend, who, unlike his companion, probably would be sorry to see me fall under the wheels of a Mack truck. I don't know if the Cunt on a Pink Bike heard this part of the interaction. If she did, she continued to not react. Of course she probably did, and made some pretty unflattering assumptions about my proficiency as a bicycle owner. Judging by her opinion of her own bike mechanic, though, it looked like the people she thought were inept mechanical dumbasses wasn't a very exclusive club.
I rode back to the parking lot and took my time packing up my car. I wanted to thank Dawn for showing me the ropes. After a few minutes Cunt on a Pink Bike rolled into the parking lot, BELLOWING, "IF ONE MORE THING GOES WRONG ON MY FUCKING BIKE...!" I don't know what else could have gone wrong, but I'm sure it wasn't worth all that. She was still upright and rolling, what more could she ask for? What a whore. I really, really hoped I'd beat her. I hoped that it had registered that she wasn't the only one having mechanical difficulties that day. I doubt it, though. She spent that evening on another plane of existence, where she was the only thing that mattered, and the whole world was revolving around her and her stupid-ass pink bike.
They took their sweet time posting the results, and when I finally saw them on Sunday afternoon, I almost shit my pants.
A volunteer pulled me out of my reveries. "Which AIDS ride was that?" It took a second to realize she was talking to me. I was wearing my AIDS LifeCycle jersey.
"Which AIDS ride was that?" she repeated. I told her and we chatted for a minute. She'd done it years ago, back when it was the California AIDS ride; back when there was the scandal about the organizers paying themselves 6-figure salaries and only donating 16% to the foundation. (Don't worry, donors, it's under different management now.)
I guess I got a little too distracted.
"NUMBERS 3 AND 4!!! NUMBERS 3 AND FOOOOOUR!" the Cunt on a Pink Bike was yelling like she owned the place.
"Oh shit! That's me!" I said and rolled over to the line.
When I rolled past her she was still yelling, "NUMBERS THHHHHREEEEEEE AND FFFFFFFFOOOOOUUUUUURRRR!"
"Number 4, I'm coming, I'm coming!" I said as I rolled by her. Guess I was wearing my invisible cap.
"NUMBERS! THREE! AND! FOUR!" Who did this bitch think she was? She wasn't even working the event.
I watched as they grabbed the back of Number 3's seat, put their legs on either side of his wheel, and counted down for him. Then he was gone. I had 30 seconds.
"You're going to want to clip in before we let you go," said the kindly bike geek working the start. I recognized him from the bike shop.
"Okay," I said, and stepped on my pedal... and rolled away. "Sorry."
"You're going to want to HOLD ON TO YOUR BRAKES as you stand up," the volunteer guy advised me. "Eddie already knows the course. He doesn't need you dragging him along the whole thing."
Oops.
I managed to get on my bike before the countdown, and when they set me free I realized I was in WAY too hard a gear. I rolled off at about half a mile an hour, very aware that the Cunt on a Pink Bike was right behind me and had witnessed the whole thing. I'm such a tool!
The course was a 9.75-mile, flat (not Florida flat, but flat enough) course. The pavement was pitted at times, but for the most part it was pretty good. I'm no good with this max effort stuff, so I took it out as hard as I could, then scaled back when I thought I'd maxed out. When I felt like I could breathe again I would push harder. I was heaving like I haven't breathed in a long time. My mouth got that phlegm-y feeling that happens when you're thirsty and working too hard. I was sweating like a pig and sweat was dripping off of me everywhere: my chin, my elbows, my knees, my forearms... I don't waste any extra energy hanging on to my aerobars, and a couple of times I rode over some holes in the road that threatened to throw me off my bars. Once I actually WAS kicked hard enough to lose contact with the elbow pads and swerved pretty badly.
About halfway through I passed Dawn. She passed me back on a slight incline, but then I got back in front of her and she was gone. Actually, she was gone rather quickly, and I wonder what happened to her, since there's no one named Dawn in the results. I was having a lot of problems shifting. I kept having to over-shift a gear and then shift back. It was really fucking me up. I just felt like I was always in the wrong gear, which doesn't help when your legs are screaming and you can't breathe as it is. Then, at about mile 7 I hit a divot that almost knocked my teeth out. After that something didn't feel right. I could hear something rattling and wondered if maybe I got a flat tire. But no, if I had a flat tire I wouldn't be going this fast. Whatever it was, it was slowing me down though (just not as much as a flat). I could just FEEL that my power was disappearing SOMEWHERE into my bike. I listened closely, sometimes I leave a tube of Nuun tabs in my bento box and they rattle like hell, but the sound wasn't coming from my bento box.
In the last .75 miles you have to climb a hill. Not a big one, but enough so that you notice when you've already been redlining it for 20 minutes. Whatever was wrong with my bike was not helping this climbing situation, dammit! I crossed the finish line in 26:01.5, averaging 22.48 mph. I was pretty happy with that considering the issues I'd been having with my gearing and whatever the hell that was that was rattling. I rode around a traffic island and then a parking lot until I got my heartrate and breathing under control, then I came to a stop behind the officials at the starting line.
A moment after I stopped, the Cunt on a Pink Bike came in, waving her aerobar. Something wasn't right with this picture. It took me a moment to figure out that the thing had broken clean off and was hanging by her shifter cable.
"You're an animal, Cunt on a Pink Bike!" someone yelled (only they didn't call her that, of course).
I took another good look at my bike: tires weren't flat, bento box was empty, brakes weren't rubbing, everything looked alright. I rode around for a minute or two to clear the shit out of my legs, and then decided that there was no reason to wait around. The problem was that I was about a mile from my car and had no idea how to get back. I looked around. The only people who were standing around who WEREN'T serving some kind of function at the finish line were the Cunt on a Pink Bike and her man friend. I had no choice. I rode up to where they were standing and stood in that obvious way you do when you're trying to get someone's attention.
"...I'm going to fucking kill him," Cunt on a Pink Bike was saying. "How does an aerobar break?! I couldn't even shift..." and she went on and on like that for minutes, ignoring my obvious presence. Was I wearing my invisible cap again? I doubted whether these were the people to ask, but there was no one else around and, although she didn't know it, I'd already beat this bitch once before. The way she was talking you would think this was the Olympic trials, not some Wednesday night local ride, and that whoever was the last person to touch her bike had done this on purpose. I mean, that sucks that her bar broke, but it didn't suck THAT bad, not like the way she was talking.
Finally she ran out of things to blame on other people, and her man friend turned his attention to me.
"Excuse me, I'm so sorry to interrupt, I just... do you know the way back to the car?"
Cunt on a Pink Bike continued to look straight ahead, as if no one else were there. As if she had merely stopped bitching because she had run out of things to say, and this insignificant speck of dirt that her man friend was talking to were not even worth a turn of the head.
"You mean the parking lot?" the man friend said. Then he proceeded to give me detailed directions back to the parking lot. We must have been talking for a couple of minutes, and in that time NOTHING in Cunt on a Pink Bike's demeanor gave the slightest hint that she was aware that I was alive.
I wanted to say, "You were at Patriot, right? Yeah, I thought so. I remember passing you. I recognized your bike," even though I don't actually remember passing her. I DID beat her by 4:00, though.
"We're just going to grab our bottles and ride back ourselves in a minute if you want to follow us," said the kindly man friend who clearly recognized me as a living, breathing being.
I flicked my eyes over Cunt on a Pink Bike for a quick second, "No thanks, I think I can find it," I said. Then I looked down, and right then was when I spotted the problem with my bike: the quick release on my front wheel had popped open. No wonder it had been rattling and I'd felt like I lost so much speed! "Oh shit, THAT'S what was rattling the last 2 miles!" I said and leaned over to flip it shut.
"Be careful! That's dangerous!" said the man friend, who, unlike his companion, probably would be sorry to see me fall under the wheels of a Mack truck. I don't know if the Cunt on a Pink Bike heard this part of the interaction. If she did, she continued to not react. Of course she probably did, and made some pretty unflattering assumptions about my proficiency as a bicycle owner. Judging by her opinion of her own bike mechanic, though, it looked like the people she thought were inept mechanical dumbasses wasn't a very exclusive club.
I rode back to the parking lot and took my time packing up my car. I wanted to thank Dawn for showing me the ropes. After a few minutes Cunt on a Pink Bike rolled into the parking lot, BELLOWING, "IF ONE MORE THING GOES WRONG ON MY FUCKING BIKE...!" I don't know what else could have gone wrong, but I'm sure it wasn't worth all that. She was still upright and rolling, what more could she ask for? What a whore. I really, really hoped I'd beat her. I hoped that it had registered that she wasn't the only one having mechanical difficulties that day. I doubt it, though. She spent that evening on another plane of existence, where she was the only thing that mattered, and the whole world was revolving around her and her stupid-ass pink bike.
They took their sweet time posting the results, and when I finally saw them on Sunday afternoon, I almost shit my pants.
Rider Age Time MPH Aero Remarks
1 Karen Smyers 47 23:00.2 25.43 Y
2 Claire Badass Mofo 25 26:01.5 22.48 Y
3 Cunt on a Pink Bike 45 26:43.6 21.89 Y
4 Some chick 53 28:28.2 20.55 Y
5 Some other chick 39 29:27.3 1 9.86 N dropped chain
I beat the Cunt on a Pink Bike pretty convincingly (I was only 10s behind her PB for the season), but did you see that name in front of mine?! Karen Smyers?! Holy crap! And she'd beat me by a solid 3:00, a full 3 mph faster than I was. I will never, ever in my life complain about losing to Karen Smyers. Man, with times like that (and pushing 50 no less!), she could put on all the airs she wanted and I wouldn't complain. She could ride the pinkest bike ever known to man and I would respect her. From what I hear though (one of the chicks in the fast lane at our pool used to train with her back in the day), she is the most understated, modest woman you will ever meet.
But Cunt on a Pink Bike? She's a bit big for her britches, don't you think? I feel like if you're going to ignore someone and treat them like something disgusting you just scraped off the bottom of your cycling cleat, then you should at least make sure you're better than them first. With the times she's posting, it's not exactly a given that she'll be faster than ANYONE.
But maybe she doesn't know. I can imagine her sitting in her lair (à la Cruella DeVille, only with with pink, fluffy things everywhere rather than spotted), checking the results and fuming. I imagine her thinking that she never would have come in behind me, if it weren't for that aerobar. I she doesn't even know that my gears weren't working right, and my front wheel was rattling all over the place. So now I HAVE to go back tonight with a healthy bike, with legs that didn't just ride 200 miles over the weekend, and I have to REALLY show her who's boss. Cunt on a Pink Bike, consider yourself served!
Results to come... as long as this menacing-looking thunderstorm blows over in the next hour!
Update: I watched the doppler radar for about an hour to see if the storm would blow over. It looked like it would, so I got in my car, drove in the driving rain out to Concord, and sure enough, by the time I got there the rain had stopped and the sun looked like it was trying to come out. But the parking lot was deserted. Looks like it was rained out anyway. I'm so mad I could spit! Now Cunt on a Pink Bike will have to wait WEEKS to find out who's boss!
1 Karen Smyers 47 23:00.2 25.43 Y
2 Claire Badass Mofo 25 26:01.5 22.48 Y
3 Cunt on a Pink Bike 45 26:43.6 21.89 Y
4 Some chick 53 28:28.2 20.55 Y
5 Some other chick 39 29:27.3 1 9.86 N dropped chain
I beat the Cunt on a Pink Bike pretty convincingly (I was only 10s behind her PB for the season), but did you see that name in front of mine?! Karen Smyers?! Holy crap! And she'd beat me by a solid 3:00, a full 3 mph faster than I was. I will never, ever in my life complain about losing to Karen Smyers. Man, with times like that (and pushing 50 no less!), she could put on all the airs she wanted and I wouldn't complain. She could ride the pinkest bike ever known to man and I would respect her. From what I hear though (one of the chicks in the fast lane at our pool used to train with her back in the day), she is the most understated, modest woman you will ever meet.
But Cunt on a Pink Bike? She's a bit big for her britches, don't you think? I feel like if you're going to ignore someone and treat them like something disgusting you just scraped off the bottom of your cycling cleat, then you should at least make sure you're better than them first. With the times she's posting, it's not exactly a given that she'll be faster than ANYONE.
But maybe she doesn't know. I can imagine her sitting in her lair (à la Cruella DeVille, only with with pink, fluffy things everywhere rather than spotted), checking the results and fuming. I imagine her thinking that she never would have come in behind me, if it weren't for that aerobar. I she doesn't even know that my gears weren't working right, and my front wheel was rattling all over the place. So now I HAVE to go back tonight with a healthy bike, with legs that didn't just ride 200 miles over the weekend, and I have to REALLY show her who's boss. Cunt on a Pink Bike, consider yourself served!
Results to come... as long as this menacing-looking thunderstorm blows over in the next hour!
Update: I watched the doppler radar for about an hour to see if the storm would blow over. It looked like it would, so I got in my car, drove in the driving rain out to Concord, and sure enough, by the time I got there the rain had stopped and the sun looked like it was trying to come out. But the parking lot was deserted. Looks like it was rained out anyway. I'm so mad I could spit! Now Cunt on a Pink Bike will have to wait WEEKS to find out who's boss!
