Tour of Richland County or I want to be the Governor of New York

Before I announce my candidacy for the NY governor’s office, I want to let you know I thought I was prepared for saturday’s race at Malabar (see photo above). Who knew there would be no snow this week, after having the last 4 races canceled due to the white stuff, I was prepared with my new snow-bike-mobile.

Being locked in the house for the past 4 weeks must have been the reason for the big turnout at the parking lot. Besides Rudy Guliani’s new comb-over/no comb-over, I saw (for our team) Rea-Rea 2.o, the Woodman, Iowa-J, Mansfield-J, Mansfield Mark, Man-of-Gawd, the Y&TR, Cadillac George (whose new racing getup is all black) and Pascalinator and her mom. We’re thinking of starting a whole new blog just to cover Pascale’s mother as a Dr. Ruth look-alike.

Tym gives me a race number “709” as in “client #9 and I’m beginning to feel a little Elliot Spitzer. Couple that with temps at 40 degrees and wind gusts at 25+ mph and sports fans, who doesn’t like their action kinda rough and dangerous?

We were scheduled for 30 miles on the up-and-down of Richland county (notice: I didn’t say in-and-out) with it’s share of dogs and locals who hate bikers with Confederate flags proudly displayed. Not dogs with flags but dogs in pickups with flags. The county road crews conveniently spread lotsa gravel on the climbs and in the turns just to give the locals (I mean dogs) the advantage.

I’m told, there are some things even Cinnamon wouldn’t do.

I’m in the masters race with everyone from ex-pros like Greg Lemond to the guy wearing gym shorts and a “I heart NY” t-shirt, maybe he’ll vote for me! To my left is Cadillac George and his 20 excuses, Woodman - “That’s Dr. Woodman, son,” the Mansfield Mark, and Rea-Rea 2.o. The neutral rollout up and up nears my lactate threshold. So I squeeze my new GU viagras and we are off. The first lap of three is quite civil, as we view the turkey vultures making a nice meal of veal McRibs just off the road. The second climb up and we have lost a few of the faithful. Halfway through the second lap and the steep steep roller, I, as they say, ‘popped’. Goodbye Rea-Rea and the bunch. The old joke “Do you smoke after sex?” comes to mind, and yes, the punch line is “I don’t know, I’ve never looked.” My man-on-man masters action is over for the day, all I have to do is finish this race without getting caught by the the big black olive oil biodiesel cadillac that is chasing me.

Just like Elliott Spitzer, my dangerous action would probably be solo for the remainder of the race. Past the dogs, and rednecks and the vultures I rode.

I finished sixth, alone, no Cinnamon, no limo, no problem. The ex-governor might have paid $4800/yr for his master's action . Mine was $25 for an hour and a half, same as ‘in the city.’