Shouldn't there at least be podium girlz?

"I won! I won! I don't have to go to school anymore." -- Eddy Merckx

For the past few decades there's been an organized race ride in Davis that departs at 6pm every Tuesday and Thursday during Daylight Savings Time.  It's a super fast but, thanks to the efforts of Alan Rowland and Dan Shadoan before him, very disciplined and as-safe-as-possible training ride that's become a rite of passage for thousands of racers and wanna be hammerheads.  On any given evening it's not unusual for more than 50 riders, including a handful of pros and former pros, to show up for the 40-mile hammerfest.  The format of the ride is pretty simple: a 15 minute group roll out to warm up and then three high speed sections lasting 12, 5, and 8 miles, respectively, separated by a few minutes of recovery to let everyone catch up before things get savage again.  In the race-y sections it's not unusual to be thundering down the road at over 30mph within inches of the riders in front, behind, and right next to you and then, when the wind's favorable, ramping it up to almost 40mph in the final sprint to the finish line.

My first experience with the ride was back in 2002 but I got torched so badly just getting through the warm up in my first 4 or 5 attempts that I quit going altogether until I started racing regularly in 2007.  And even now, with a couple seasons of racing under my belt, when the speed starts picking up I often feel as if I'm in the middle of a knife fight with nothing more than a moldy Slim Jim and a colorful vocabulary.  To just survive the fast sections I usually have to resort to major amounts of wheel sucking and drafting behind stronger riders while I try not to burn my lungs down to two shriveled bronchial stumps.  And even then, despite all of my attempts to ride as smart as possible, it's a fairly routine experience for me to get spit out the back of the pack faster than last night's Blue Plate Special while the rest of the field fades off into the distance.

So imagine my surprise last night as the group entered the final mile of the 2nd race section and I found myself in great position to contest the sprint.  Not only was I in good position, I was NOT feeling as craptastic as I usually do at this point.  Indeed, I was actually feeling relaxed and like I still had some gas left in the tank.  Even more remarkable, up until then I had decided to not follow my usual strategy of hiding in the pack and riding the draft to the finish line.  Instead, I had done my best to stay in the mix up until that point, taking turns rotating through the front as often as possible and spending energy like it was somebody else's money, for once not worrying about not getting dropped. Usually when I do that I'm cooked and eaten and paid for by the middle of the 2nd fast section.  I don't know what made last night different, but all I could think was: Whose body have I swapped with with and, boy, is he gonna be pissed when he realizes he's got mine! 

Back to the sprint: As the finish line got closer, the group started bunching up as more people surged to the front.  I was squeezed up against the yellow line and halfway to deciding to just roll to the finish without trying for the win when the rider in front of me moved just enough to the right for me to squeeze by.  I hitched up my Big Boy pants, got out of the saddle, and shot the gap to make my move for the line.  Just as I got my legs spun all the way up to speed another rider alongside of me faded left, forcing me to move over the center line to avoid a collision.  I tried to maintain my speed and continue moving left to get out of everyone's way as a consequence of breaking the center line rule but the racer who had been in my draft started yelling, "Go, go, go!!!!" so I picked up the speed again and found that extra 1/2" of space I needed to get back over the yellow line.  And then something totally unexpected happened - it was just me and one other guy gunning for the line with everyone else behind us.  I swear to Dog that it was just like in the movies.  There was no sound except for the rushing of blood and wind in my ears, every pedal stroke lasted a lifetime, and the finish line got foreshortened to infinity until it was just one long white smear fading out to the horizon.  Out of the corner of my eye I could see that my front wheel was crossing his rear wheel, a pedal stroke later and it was passing his rear derailleur, one more turn to pass his bottom bracket, now his fork, and then his front wheel!

I crossed the finish line in first place fully expecting my cell phone to start ringing with a call from France and an urgent request to see if I could get on a 747 to make it to France in time to start the Tour on Saturday.  As the pack regrouped and we rolled to the start of the third sprint, I couldn't understand why everyone else wasn't grinning as big as I was or whooping it up as much as I wanted to right then.  What was the matter with these people?  Didn't they realize I just came as close to winning a real race as I probably ever will in my entire life and all the reincarnations forever after world without end amen?!?!?!  I know that men in the US generally don't show strong emotion but come on people, I just won the second sprint for my first time ever on some random Tue/Thu race ride!  Throw me an F-ing bone already!  And to make matters even worse, I got dropped in the last sprint of the night a full mile from the finish.  And as I rode in with the father of the racer I beat in the second sprint, I tried to be all casual as I mentioned that I went one-two with his son.  His reply was perfect: "Oh, that's nice.  Did you notice his new bike?  It's totally sweet!"

JHC, give me strength!

Fundraising Update:
Raised as of 7/2: $1720 or 4.3%
Left to raise: $38280 or $850.67/wk
Click here to donate right now!

$40G's a nice round number

   Okay, I'm all registered for the 2011 NCACycle, the blog is finally up, the tandem is purchased, and there's already some $$$ in my fundraising account (Thanks, you two!)  Let's see...I've raised $125 so far, leaving me $39875 dollars left to raise and...46 weeks to raise it in.  That comes out to an average of $866.85/week between now and next May.  Zoinks!
   Joaquin's Big Fundraising Plan is also starting to come together. So far I've got four different strategies for raising hunks of that $40G - $10G in donations from individuals; $10G in donor matching from local businesses and philanthropists to match the $10G from individuals; $10G in a series of slammin' fundraising events in Winter and Spring 2011; and then the final $10G using some combination of luck, divine intervention, the teeth-and-dimples, and finding out that, yes, it is possible to find the end of a rainbow and, yes, there is a little leprechaun there who wants to share her pot of gold with me. Admittedly, the plan needs a little work, but that's what I've got so far.
  I've got two businesses and an anonymous philanthropist all set for donor matching in the months of June/July, August, and September.  Thanks Davis Wheelworks and CustomerLink!  I'm hopeful that I can find folks to donor match for the other 7 months before the NCACycle.  Also, Beth at B&L Bike Shop is donating a cruiser bike to raffle off to jumpstart the fundraising.  I'm hoping to have a ton of other stuff available to motivate and reward donors along the way. So stay tuned and feel free to donate early, late, and often!
   At this point, there are all sorts of popular sayings that come to mind about long journeys starting with a single step or eating elephants one bite at a time or birds in the hand versus them being in the bush, but right now what comes to my mind is: "WTF were you thinking when you said $40G?!?!?!"  Reminds me of my favorite scene in Cool Hand Luke:

DRAGLINE: Why'd you have to say fifty [eggs]? Why not thirty five or thirty nine?
LUKE: Fifty's a nice round number.

  I'm sure I'll have more to think and write about that over the next year or so as I start whittling away at my goal.  I hope to explore that as well as what it is about bicycle riding, HIV/AIDS advocacy, taking on huge projects, tandem riding, etc. that are so attractive and compelling to me.  And maybe inspire readers to get involved and/or donate by clicking on one of the links at the bottom of the blog. So stay tuned and thanks for reading!