Ballin'

This past Saturday, June 14th, was the Monson Road Race. If you look over there on the right hand side, you'll see that Matt "Zen Master" Rossman snuck his ass into a third place finish. Which, sadly, I did not see as someone decided to crash on the wet train tracks in front of me. Despite my best attempts to bunny-hop his body and his bike, I went down.

But before that. The race as a nice little rolling 56 mile stroll through Southern Mass, a good opener before the Housatonic Hills Race of Pain and Climbing and Hurt that was coming up on Sunday. There were only three NorEasters in the Pro/1/2 race - Myself, Duncan and Rossman - and we decided from the beginning to chill out and conserve our limited energies for the more difficult race tomorrow.

The first lap was interesting, as occasionally a small group would get off the front with what appeared to be the right mix of riders...and then eight people would bridge up to it. Then it was too big to be let go, and the field would chase it down. I did a little, tiny bit of work in some of these instances, but I was mostly just hoping to stay fresh for the next day.

One of the most interesting things to see was Dan Vaillancourt put in one hard pull once a large group had a small gap, which motivated the field to chase it down, and then to see him sit in and get pulled up with everyone else.

Another thing to note was the fact that the motorcycle that was pacing us either hated cyclists, was drunk, or had no friggin' clue what was going on. As he occasionally stopped in the middle of intersections, almost killing us. And he started us out in the wrong direction from the gun.

So after a little bit of climbing, some descending, we came to a long flat section with train track crossings. I went down on the first one, tried to chase back on, but it wasn't going to happen. Probably the best crash ever, as the only real casualties were my team kit, bar tape and a bit of a scrape on my elbow. It was a good thing it was wet out, as I just slid.

But according to Duncan and Rossman, shortly thereafter, a break got away, which Duncan was in. So much for chilling out that day. The break stayed away for most of the second (and final) lap, until a few riders decided to chase it back - and Rossman intelligently hopped on their wheel, and got a free ride up to the break when it was caught on the base of the finishing climb (or...rise. Not much of a real climb). From there, he unleashed all the power that he contains during a race by chilling not near the front, and came in third.

Yaaaaay!

Then a few of us stayed at my parents house, where they outfitted a sofa bed with the most ballin' sheets ever.