Beatdowns

 Lately, there has been an abundance of beatdowns, and I seem to be on the receiving end of most of them. Spanish Mackerel, Big Jim Slade, and myself, did a recon ride for parts of the Dirty Ron, last Saturday. I casually bumped the pace, to be sure I got the 1st yellow sign. I'm very glad I took that dirty shot, as I would have been shut out otherwise. Mackerel handed BJS a heads up loss on the next sign, and there were 2 more close behind, so he rolled on through those as well. Now BJS is aggravated, that he's rolling a goose egg, to my dirty 1, and Mackerel's straight up 3. The monster was now sufficiently awake, and Big Jim proceeded to smear his amazingness all over Mackerel and I. It took 2 showers to get the residue off. I thought I could win at least a couple, but hell no! Every single time, BJS stomped his dominance all over the road. I hate to say it, but that bruised my ego a little. I've always sucked at sprinting, but damn! Final score had BJS around 15, Mackerel 3 or 4, Bigworm..........1, and a dirty 1 at that.

Tuesday night, we rode Munson. We got some much needed rain Monday night and Tuesday morning. Quite honestly, we expected to be rained out entirely, but a few of us held out hope, and scored Munson in good condition. We even had a special guest showing, in the form of Longshanks. Longshanks has been tearing up the local road scene, but decided to race his mountain bike again, this fall. Apparently his luck has not been so good. He mumbled something about the top 2 expert women catching him on the last lap of his last race, and that he just wasn't tough enough to race off road anymore. What I should have heard at that moment was, "...and you boys aren't either!". After a reasonable warm up, Longshanks takes us up to "fast but manageable" speed. After a little of that, he went into "are you freaking kidding me we're gonna die on the backside of Twilight" speed. We hit one of the small rises out there, and I could feel the damp, but still soft, sand sucking the resolve from my legs. The newer guys closed back on to my back wheel, and I hated to get us all dropped, so I gave it everything I had, to keep the gap down to 20-30 feet at the top. I so wanted to ease up, but I needed to bridge the gap. Slowly but surely, I reattached our cars to the train, and just as we closed it down, Big Jim Slade mercifully threw himself at a log and the ground in grand fashion, earning us a brief respite. I took the opportunity, between gasping deep breaths, to profess my true love for Longshanks. I told him I loved him so much, that I would like to arrange a mating with him and a syphilitic moose! In typical nice guy fashion, he starts apologizing, and explains that he had even gone easy up that last hill, so everyone would get to rest. Are you kidding me?!!!! My very soul was on fire as I tried to hang on up that hill. Perhaps I can find a dead, rotting, syphilitic moose for Longshanks' gift. He continues to apologize, and I just told him to refer to Rule #5, and administer the beatings like a man. It's my own fault for not being faster, and he's got no reason to apologize.

Last night, everybody and their brother found reasons not to ride. BJS and I were the only takers. Secretly, I hoped that the mass inclusion of the Forbidden Forest, would swing the beating stick back in my favor, but no such luck. I never really felt like I had my game on, as I bounced from root to root. I still kept the pressure on myself, to a least not hold BJS up. By the end, I was gassed. we had a 2:10 roll time, and a huge chunk of that was technical singletrack, in the dark. My neck, back, arms, legs, shoulder, face, chest, and neck areas, all hurt.

This weekend, I intend to do a little slow rolling. Hopefully, my legs will loosen, and my ankle will stop aching. In the meantime, lest Big Jim Slade forget, especially given his latest blog entry, I included the little reminder at the top of the page.