I did my Joe Namath yesterday. Today I had to follow through. I rolled west just in time to discover the bearings in my front Cane Creek hub are toast. They started making a sound similar to popping popcorn as I rolled away from the house and by the time I reached Machinery Row they were in full pop. I stopped in to sus it out but as I spun the wheel, well, tried to spin the wheel, I knew they wouldn't handle too many more miles. When I got to Research Park I borrowed a wheel from the official (Craig) and pinned a number on the BKB jersey.
My plan was simple, sit in and pounce on the sprint. On the 4th lap the bell rang for a prime and I was sitting pretty good in 5/6th place. Two guys wound it up into the headwind before the last corner and a third came through on my right. I got on his wheel in the hopes he'd pull me to the line and I might sneak around him. It worked out better than I planned. He ran out of steam with 100 meters to go and shifted. I was in the right gear so I hit it and put 3 bike lengths by the line.
Then everyone countered with a relatively hard tempo and my lead-out guy was shat out the back. I pulled into the draft of the 25 or so that made up the field and turned on the cruise control. There were a few more primes but I resisted the temptation to push it or attack afterwards.
With 2 laps to go there was another prime, 6 deep this time, so everyone put their ass in the air and went full throttle. I sat there in 8th or so and let everyone shoot their wads with a lap to go. As we came down the back side of the course nobody wanted to pull but there was jockeying for the draft with the headwind approaching on the last straight before the last corner. Half-way down I had had enough so I went through the gaps in the middle of the field on a charge to the front. There was yelling to get on my wheel but by the time I'd dropped the chain down to the 14t I was rolling at 35 and building speed. I went extra wide through the last corner and got out of the saddle with the full 200 meters to go. With nobody to lead me out and nothing but tailwind to the finish I hit it as hard as I could.
I looked under my arms with a few meters to go but everyone was at least 20 meters behind, so I sat up and gave the index finger to the official. "I would be 1st." He just smiled and shook his head.
After cooling down I decided to end the night on a high note. I picked up my prime and prize, a box of Swedish Fish and a box of Charleston Chew. It was either that or a dopey Schwinn baseball hat. Sephie likes Swedish fish so I picked them for her.
The temptation of the Dark Side is strong. Remembering what it was like to win a field sprint or a prime is one thing. Winning stirs up all the memories and awakens the Beast. In 3-4 weeks I went from back of the field to 1st. While I'd dearly like to renew my US Cycling/USCF license, I know I don't want to be pushing the tempo on the road.
I'd rather Kill Dreams on the Rig.
No comments:
Post a Comment