New toys!

It was like christmas came early the night before the California state cyclocross championships. I usually don't recommend doing last minute equipment changes but I had been having mechanical trouble and it was the only time I had so I brought all my tools and my bike into the living room and started turning wrenches...This is the bike when I was pretty much done with it. Amuse yourself by seeing which tools you can name... okay that's enough of that. There are some sweet new cranks, a cassette and new cable and housing. Ohhh, Ahhhh! Eat your heart out bike dorks. Here is basically a pretty boring pic of me suffering, taken by my personal photographer, a master of the Glamour/Action shot. He has one of those artsy one word names like "Cher" or "Madonna". I think he goes by the name of "Dad"
As I said though, pretty boring pic so I guess he kinda' let me down but like I said, he IS a master. Trust me.

Okay so the race got off to a quick start and I kind of fell into a battle for ? place with this cat: Michael Lee, a pretty dominant fellow mountain biker.
After a couple of laps he faded and I pulled away so I am guessing this race came after a hard week of base miles as he is a super strong rider.
I mean... I, uh... told him... "Are you hungry?" and then he was all like "Whaaaattt??" only more high pitched than that, and then I was like "Eat my dust!" and I totally smoked him 'cause I am a champ like that! Yesss!
Okay that's a lie. Sorry.

Okay, seriously, I am a serious guy and this is how it really went down:

After going back and forth with Michael Lee for a while we caught up to Jason Lowetz who had rolled his tire off the rim and then punched it/threatened it back on to the rim and Fritz Bottger who had raced single speed earlier and won ( to become State Champ ). I broke away from Jason, Fritz and Michael and rode by myself for a few laps and then Jason put in a huge effort and caught up to me. I really wanted to stay away from Fritz and Michael, and Jason needed the points for his overall standing in the state series so I told him that if we worked together I wouldn't contest the sprint at the end.

Here is a picture of me riding the "run-up" with Jason hot on my heels. It is steep but he and I had practiced it last week and we both rode it every time.

Now back to the story... Jason and I were working together and with two laps to go Fritz put in a hard effort and almost caught us, but then he spun out climbing the run-up and Jason and I stayed away with no problem. For a while I thought Jason was going to fall off and give me the 8th place spot ( the last spot with a cash prize! ) because he started cramping, but he pushed through it and we came to the line together. He got 8th and I got 9th, not bad considering neither one of us had ever raced 'cross before last year.

We then retired to the parking lot to lean against the back of his Lincoln Towncar, the "Black Pearl", and investigate a giant box o' liquer in the trunk while we all shared a bottle of "High Life" that Fritz had brought. None of us are big drinkers so one bottle of High Life was enough for the three of us, but we had several racers crash the party and they all put a good sized dent in the giant box o' liquer. But that is a whole 'nother story, for a whole 'nother chapter. Plus it's top secret so I'll never tell.