Thursday 14 May 2009

One Year

I've just heard something about how they are trying to engineer how to make a foreclosure less of a credit hit. I'm sorry, this is ri-god-damn-diculous. Oppressive and unmanageable mortgages don't just happen to people. Stupidity should hurt. Bad credit is not the new black, it's the same old red that it always was - red ink.

Tonight is the one year anniversary of the crash that took me out at Hains Point. I've never focused on the crap riding on the part of the guy who took me out, and I'm not going to now. I have no idea who he is, but let's just say that if we were introduced I wouldn't sit down and have a beer with the guy and laugh about it. If you're going to ride in large packs at high speed, please have some freaking idea of what you're doing. All I'll say on that side of the matter.

The more positive side of the matter was the support shown by people in general, my team mates in particular and my wife in very particular. Some people don't like seeing their names in print so I'm not going to list them, but if they read this they'll know how they are. I will always appreciate what you all did to help me out. Thank you.

Having three months of your ability to walk removed blows. Having to take two unscheduled weeks off of work sucks, and not being able to work at nearly full speed for two weeks after that sucks too. Losing a riding season, especially when you're older than Methusela, sucks. Putting your entire home work load onto your wife and needing her to be your nurse sucks.

Pain sucks. I remember being taken down to surgery, and the nurse who was in the front of my gurney somehow managed to drop the front support thing of the gurney, leaving my profoundly broken leg dangling unsupported in front of me. Cluelessness on that lady's part sucked. Waking up out of general anesthesia sucks. Man I've never been so scared and confused in my life.

After Greenbelt last night, I'll say I'm still progressing on the road to not being freaked out all the time when I'm riding with groups. There are too many people who don't know what they're doing and don't have an appreciation for why you don't dive corners or just plain do whatever you want. There are too many people whose bike handling is just weak. The hard corner (hard as in angular, not as in difficult) at Greenbelt is maybe a 3 on the 1 to 10 scale of difficulty. You should be able to roll through that going wicked fast with zero thought of drifting too wide. The thing is that I guess it was always this way, and 'twill ever be thus. So if you are still stuck riding in the B race, you deal with it while you have to and then move up to the A race when you earn the right to do so and for the record I don't think the participation prize in Cat 4 is a legitimate way to move up - you need some results.

That said, people showed up to race last night, which was good. The Bike Rack guys made things happen, as did ABRT. I'm missing another team that I thought was doing a good job. A guy in a Pitt jersey got an earful when we had a gap and I'd been pulling him for about half a lap (thinking about pulling through ever, guy?) and then Tim Rugg came blasting by and Pitt guy told me "PULL, STAY WITH HIM!" Are you high? He must have been cooked because he dropped off never to be seen again. We had a newer guy who contributed to chasing three breaks that we were in, that kind of pissed me off. He's really strong, and I probably didn't have to let him have it like I did ("dude, you're wicked strong but what the F)(K are you doing chasing your team mates down? Oh by the way what's your name?") so I felt a little bad about that. NCVC does a pretty unreal job of rider education on a mass scale, but you can only create the watering holes, welcome the horses and lead them to said hole. You can't make them drink.

The scores from last night seem a little screwy. I wasn't listed and so must be one of the riders between 6th and 10th. I would have guessed I was 12th or 13th, not in the top ten. I had a good move in the middle part of the finishing hill part but only got as far forward as maybe third at one point, and I thought a pretty huge handful of guys got me on the inside as I negotiated a dropped rider who was still on the course. They have riders listed down to 30, it's not possible that I was that deep. I'm saying I was 13th, no better than that. Oh well it's Wednesday, Greenbelt is fun as hell, and it was great to have people willing to give it a roll last night.

Keep the rubber side down at Wilmington and BikeJam. I'll be doing a longish TT on Sunday, trying to figure out how not to suck at that.

7 comments:

Jim said...

In the spirit of the times and Giving The People What They Want, I'm working on developing a method of riding your bike up hills that won't penalize you for being fat, and I'm working on a method of cheating on one's spouse that won't make the cheated upon spouse homicidally mad. And while we're at it, we might as well suspend the rules of f***ing physics...

The scoring at Greenbelt is always sketchy. I don't harsh on them too hard about it any more though mainly because I haven't done Greenbelt in a while, but it's a volunteer-run training race. You try running a race every week and see how you like it...

Dave said...

Totally not freaking on the scoring. No way. That guy Jeff does more for my life than most people, fo' sho' Did you miss the part about "Whatever, it's Wednesday, it's Greenbelt..." I mean shit they put me higher than I thought I was, that's aces in my book!

But, unlike all them bitches who DO bitch and never do anything themselves to improve things, I am actually undertaking a fairly profound project/contribution to the racing world. So even though I very rarely bitch about things like the way races are won, I am categorically contributing.

Dave said...

And by "the way races are won" I meant the way races are RUN.

My verification was "geezisntthatdaveangreatguy." Talk about knowing what's up!

TerribleTerry said...

happy anniversary... Don't celebrate by being the one fellow who crashes in the TT.

Dave said...

That's Drew A's job, Terry.

Damn, I didn't just say that, did I? Especially after getting all weepy on the unnamed him in this very post. I'm an asshole. But I'll temper it by saying I don't go fast enough in TTs to do much damage anyway.

fabsroman said...

Dave,

You left out the guy last night that was swerving on the descent to avoid potholes. My first crash ever was on that descent, and I can tell you that it was a memorable one that I do not want to repeat since I was 20+ years younger when it happened and it hurt like hell back then. Thanks for mentioning ABRT. We are going to try to make it a little harder next week. I also thought that Route 1 was doing a pretty good job of getting things done.

As far as scoring goes, if you aren't in the top 5, who really cares if they got it right. I was a little too far back at the bottom of the climb right before the sprint, figured I probably wouldn't be in the top 5 even if I took some serious risks, so I shut it down. As the season rolls on, the group will be smaller and there will be less of the sketchy riders.

By the way, try to forget about this anniversary since it isn't a good one.

Lance Lacy said...

happy anniversary,i got you some long finger gloves