21.5.07

WOW

Wheels on Willy went down yesterday, the knee issues worked themselves out. TSK managed to stay at my place for the weekend's racing in Madison, and the company was much appreciated. Although I feel very....how do I say this....SHORT after standing next to John. 6'4'', possibly 6'5'' according to the man himself--that's not a height we mess around with. 63cm frame says it all.

Oh the race: I SRAM'ed it up in the final sprint. SRAM'ed meaning I mis-shifted during the sprint and came down a little bit hard on the top tube, ouch. Somehow I managed to keep things going and roll in for 7th place. In the post race diagnosis, it turns out the SRAM 11-26 cassette I love so much got a little bit too much lovin' this season. I wore out the 14t cog, and it skipped like a fat kid in a candy store on Sunday with a new chain in place. Oh well, crisis avoided for the next race.

Things went well overall, none of my break attempts were really working during the race. I bridged up to John one lap and we motored it for a while, but things came back. Frankie was active as usual, attacking on the finishing straight pretty much every lap of the race--to no avail unfortunately. All that was left to do was avoid the carnage on the last lap and stick it to the field in the sprint--in other words, hold Fresh's wheel and suffer like hell to hope for 2nd place. That worked well, until the SRAM'ing action in the final sprint. It's a crit, what can I say?

I'm back at home for the week. It's good to be home for a while, to let my family know how much I appreciate their support. It's been a good season so far, but there's a long way to go. Here's to good racing all around--

-b-

2 comments:

Anonymous said...

How does it feel to no longer be a teen-ager? Good luck this weekend!

Ryan Baumann said...

It feels kind of sore, but I'm pretty sure that's because of road rash and not because of being 20 years old.