new year's 2008 - nine

It's hard to be a skinny-high-five'n white boy when all the world is run by fatmen
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me thinks that makes for a bad steu

Lancaster 2006...Re-runs III

The instructions I received at the start line were simple. Triple A-Aaron said “Just follow the Giant.” The plan was to follow all the moves of the American Thor Hushovd aka Isaiah, winner of everything lately. With storm clouds moving in we rolled out for our 25 minutes of round-and-round in downtown Lancaster...or as the locals call it “Lank-ster.” Cadillac George whispered, “shadow, the sasquatch.” Nice four corners track here. Jungle Jack reminds to “yield to the Yeti.” A couple accelerations by Isaiah are marked and Chairman Fred pipes in, “tailgate the leviathan.” OKAY I get it....hunt the Titan...Chase the Colossus...stalk the Behemoth...Enough Already...how about this Concatenate the brobdingnagian!...Look that one up you raisin-bread eaters!

The plan worked to perfection (at least in my mind), clear dry roads... oops, 3 laps to go and it begins to sprinkle, I’m still sitting on Isaiah’s wheel as 1 lap is called. Raining a little harder now...Acceleration, I’m on it and in third position as we come into the last turn.

The godfather describes the crash as “beautiful, like all-male synchronized swimming.” The giant hits some wet white lane markings, slides on his hip and “ashes-ashes, we all fall down.” Having received the worst of it, I’m slow to pick up my bike and finish eighth.

Chapeau to Dr. Dave, the only Amigo to show up today, raced in an ugly downpour.

More Winter ReRuns...Tour O' Grandview 2006

I guess it was a bit disappointing that the Tour de Granview, scheduled as an outing for the Cat 4 team to race with the Cat. 3 Amigos didn’t stay that way...George called them “the cat. 3 Musketeers” and Charlie “the 3 stooges,” with that biting Texas “s-sound” that W pronounces Evildoers with...Well the 3/4 lovefest lasted for about 2 laps of the scheduled 8, as it was once again the Cadillac George and Marco Pantani show this week in Columbus...please tip your waitress, we’ll be working this room all week....spit out of the back of the Amigo race, George and I did a 2-man roadshow for lap-after-lap, thinking we were the lantern rouge. Nobody told us the entire cat. 4 field was behind us. Mel and Rain-man must have been playing rock-paper-sissors because they never said “sit up and wait, help is about 30 second behind you.” The nice family grilling bratwurst (make mine with mustard, no onions) were silent, the race announcer kept calling us stragglers. Onward we trudged taking turns. George and I didn’t want to make this a tour with a small “T” so we worked hard (not Jens Voight hard, but maybe Christophe Moreau hard). OK, hard enough that I see Pete standing on the side of the road and I’m hallucinating (I think) because he looks like that guy from the Village People doing the YMCA song. Mel waves, Mike gives the thumbs up. NOTHING....two laps to go, here comes Iowa J, Charlie, and the rest of the 4s. Oops, I’m sorry but I’ve left my legs back there somewhere on the course....One of the out-of-town riders starts in on us with “the Raisin Rack, what’s that mean? Is it like your women’s team has small breasts?”...the Iowa tornado was like “Whatever...” But Charlie kept insisting the cyclist check out the “Rack” on a couple of our Stooge teammates after the race....1.5 laps to go and the large health company dude jumps, Charlie marks his move... and we are back together... I’m spit off the back at the bell but I bridge on the downhill....half a lap and it looks like it’s is going to be an uphill race and a long long sprint. Did I mention that the Godfather and I did some real hard work when we thought it was just the two of us? Needless to say the fat lady had sung, and indeed, she had a nice rack....

Return of the 'quote of the day'

We will be returning to the daily quotes on the email group A World Of Pain, but I wanted to drop this one on you.

"The purpose of life is to be defeated by greater and greater things."
-Rainer Maria Rilke (born 1875)

Winter ReRuns - March 2006 Mid-Ohio Race

With all the snow and rain and cold, I'm posting race reports from the old days- ESPN Classic style. Here's one from the 2006 season:
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Just after the start, the Cat. 4 race turned into a forum on American Pacifism and the Christian ‘just war’ theory. Whaler and I were talking about the proliferation of ‘so-called’ Anarcho-pacifists, you know the followers of Leo Tolstoy. Jaybone piped up and suggested that they were no more than Nihilists. “Maybe,” says Pink Floyd (Jungle Jack version 2.0), “but can you still talk smack and be a pacifist?” Interesting query (we’ll get to that later) as the glass shards, oops, no the biting sleet starts attacking our faces on the 1st lap. The 30 or so racers also feel the pain of White Lightning's accelerations up the hill lap-after-lap and Cho-cho Charlie tells us that we have to be joking, because everyone thought the were WMDs before the invasion and jumps off the front for a solo stroll that pops a coupla riders off the back....I wasn’t talking to you anyway. Whaler starts listing famous pacifists like John Lennon, Buddha, and Native American Chief Seattle and I begin to see the close resemblance his facial features have with THE ROCK. I had just watched DOOM - the movie (one star, no nekkid chicks, but plenty of gore) and there he was, Jerry wielding a plasma gun. This certainly makes our conversation surreal because as you know their really hasn’t ever been an “unjust” war. Godfather Conti chimes in and brings up fictional pacifists like Jeff Lebowski and Stimpy (from Ren & Stimpy). Stimpy? Don’t ask, Godfather does a few powerful turns and settles back....how many laps to go? Two, ok we run around the backside. As the boys get jumpy and the skinny OS-shoe rider collides with the 16 year-old from Pennsylvania. More about that later. The COBC train has whittled the field to about 8 riders and Andy makes a break with 2 other guys. We come together on the backside and Bolt-man calls a lead out about 1/2 mile before the finish. forgetaboutit. George powers through again, Andy jumps and gets first.

We revisit the pacifism issue after the race when the OS-shoe rider wants to fight the skinny kid he collided with. I told the shoe-dude that if he wanted to fight the kid, he also has to fight me, because this is a race and crashes happen. I was bluffing, and also wondering if the bluff was somehow counter to the pacifist code? Long story short, Bob Marley and the Whaler circled the shoe-dude, reminded him that he too had made an aggressive move, this was just an accident, and then sent him off with his tail between his legs.

Moral of the story: I was quite proud to ride with this league of gentlemen. Clean and fair racers who defend the other riders and the race itself. Maybe the Godfather was right, the big Lebowski did say, “This aggression will not stand, man.” Somebody ask him to explain the stimpy thing...