Monday, October 6, 2008

The WI racers know how to party

Hey, it's been awhile. How y'all doin'? We got our first taste of WI cross a couple of weeks ago at the Jonathan Page Planet Bike Cup. Let me tell ya. This gang of merry cross racers know how to party. And yell. And ring bells. Oh yeah, and pedal really hard. The only bummer from the spectator standpoint was Wells not having a fair shake on Saturday with a flat early, which made JP's win a bit of a formality. Still an incredible show of horsepower though. Sunday's race was a bit more interesting, with JP visiting the pits a few time. Then watching him close the gaps and then winning the sprint. Again, too bad Tim had some mishaps. But Troy and Michael Mueller made the race interesting too. All good stuff.

The good doctor has been on a roll. A sixth and fifth the first weekend and then a fifth and third this past weekend has her sitting pretty in fourth for the cat 3 women's points series. It's really a lot of fun watching her settle in and race a new group of faces. It always amazes me how cool the ladies are to each other. Two weeks in and they are all chatty and they do their post-race, war-story, cool-down laps together. Really good stuff.

The courses have been interesting. The JP cup was along the lines of Canton for you New Englanders. A lot of really hard pedalling sections and some good turns to test the handling and accelerations. This past weekend was different though. Rebecca said Saturday's course was the most fun she has had on a cross bike. I thought it was fun too. The only thing I can really compare it to is the Winding Trails mountain bike race course, but on cross bikes. Lots of fun ups and downs and twists and turns. Yesterdays course was fun because it got a little slick with some rain. So all in all there have been some fun races.

Oh, me? Pfft. After 8 weeks off the bike and only about 1600 miles this spring/summer before the hiatus in July and August, let's just say I am only trying to avoid being lapped. And I haven't been very successful. I keep telling myself that I am out here to practice technique and get in a good workout. It's all good.

Other than racing, Wisconsin has been a lot of fun. The weather was awesome in September and we are starting to find our way around. The road riding is really nice and we are looking forward to getting the mountain bikes out.

Oh, and if all of you back home think you have it rough having to pay $4 for parking at Look Park, we had to shell out $18 just to park yesterday. Get this. $10 for the car and $4 for each bike on the car. It's like that at all of the state parks. I'm glad we didn't bring pit bikes. We were hunting for change in the seats as it was!

Best of luck to everyone at Gloucester this weekend. We'll be ringing cow bells and wishing we were there. It'll be the first Gloucester we've missed. I hope it's the first and last one at that.

Hey, thanks for reading! Miss you all.

6 comments:

Ben said...

I know it can be rough to leave the East Coast, but Wisconsin Loves You

van den kombs said...

I miss you and the good dr. It is not the same getting psyched to go race without Reb on the starting line. Gloucester 3/4 women looks like 60+ both day..

great you guys are settling in..

Colin R said...

zank, i'm specifically hunting down the wisconsin cross series results to add to crossresults.com so i can keep track of whatever category you happen to be sandbagging.

Christopher said...

they're at wicycling.org

privateer said...

My wife is from Wisconsin, and it has been my experience that people from those parts will find just about any excuse to hang out, drink beer, and have a good time.

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