The Real World Isn't Very Fun

While the ECCC was busy kicking people's teeth in in Colorado, The RIT Outlaw Bicycle Crew took time out of its busy schedule to get its teeth kicked in in its first USAC race this weekend, riding around a very windy Bristol Mountain circuit. The picture available on the race website belies the massive, 50+mph descent that went into the straight, false-flat finish. Unfortunately, to get to that finish, a climb (and this has been a subject of much discussion) that was worse than Penn State but not as bad as Dartmouth had to be surmounted. And, even before that, the incredible headwinds along the flat had to be contended with, leaving absolutely no time to rest and making it impossible to attack. Truly, a day for the climbers.

Ejected from the collegiate cycling womb, I discovered the cat 5 pack is filled with old people of whom the hardships of life have gotten the better. No longer are jokes about doping appreciated, and more often than not people have only this brief escape of grueling "fun" before being sucked back up into the machine that crushes people's spirits like children's fingers in massive cogs. High points, however, came when I whistled the Smurfs theme song and someone whistled it back, as well as a guy who was nice enough to offer me a piece of Snickers. Once the "Serious Business" riders got down to their business and left us goofy guys behind, the tone lightened and everything was right with the world. None of us, in any category, had a very competitive race (especially Chris, who broke his chain and decided to run his bike to the finish), leading us to believe that "don't train to save your legs" isn't a feasible regimen.

We left the race just as the rain started coming down and eschewed the fine dining nature of things by getting gas station pizza. The weather, violent and full of thunder and fat drops of rain, disappeared by 3 o'clock, but ushered in a very powerful wind that made eating and cooking difficult. We moved everything inside, where the party stayed until people got bored, tired, or grossly injured, depending on who you were.