ride joe ride

After you’re apprehensive, then excited, then eager, then reflective, then bored, then in pain, then in some more pain, then in abject pain, then doubtful, then despairing, then considering quitting, then planning quitting, then resigned to quit, then (and in my experience only then) do you find yourself in the absence of ambition but still moving and faced with the immediate and endlessly repeating question: “do I stop now, or keep going?” Every decision to keep moving, keep moving the feet, yields a forward motion at your invincible pace. Maybe someday you’ll stop, but at that moment your progress in inevitable. Finding my invinicible pace is what ultra events are about for me. I’d forgotten mine for a few years. I found it again at the Dairyland Dare.

Many thanks to everyone who made the ride happen and special thanks to Allison, Francisco, Steve and Angela. It was an awesome day and I am glad to have shared it with you.

By Thursday afternoon, my weekend was laid out complete with some time spent out of the city, a long ride, and some general relaxation. Little did I know that the innocuous looking post titled “racing this weekend?” which showed up in my RSS reader would lead to the end of all that. Click, click and suddenly it was Christmas in July or, more accurately, cyclocross in August.

After a mad dash to finish my half-built cross bike, and a Saturday maiden voyage on the grass that was probably a touch more intense than necessary, Allison and I met Dan at the shop to caravan out to the west part of the city to see what this bandit cross race was about.

We pulled up to the park to see a number of members of a local team responsible for another first race this season that was exceptionally fun. I’ll leave them in anonymity, but suffice it to say that I was instantly confident that this event was going to be done properly.

And it was. As we discovered in our “neutral lap” the course was awesome and had most of what you’d want in a park-based cross race. The sandpit was wicked deep, the pine tree gauntlet was prickly, and the bunny hop barriers made a nice crunching sound when you landed on them. The race was started in true style: on foot with a dash to grab your bike. I was second into the hole and managed to hang near the front for the first lap and a half, but as Dan noted, Ben Popper doesn’t slow down after the first lap. Soon I was doing the alka-seltzer maneuver as I sank back through the ranks.

By the hour mark everyone (except Ben of course) was cooked, happy, and ready to call it a morning. As I rode away from the smiling finish line group, I realized that this could be the best the cross season holds. Like the early season Kevin’s Crits (which were not quite bandit races, of course), or our practice crits, there is something particularly fun about an unsanctioned or out of the way race. I suppose it has to do with knowing that everyone there is just as eager as you to get the season underway. Maybe even more importantly, with nothing really on the line (not even the coveted king of cat 5 crown), the competition is really distilled to being simply a pursuit born from love of the sport.

Two weeks until the next race, and I can’t wait.