Guest post by Tracy Rankin

For scholars of the Old Testament, this is the appropriate time of year to consider plagues and salvation.  And while tropical storm force winds were not one of the official Plagues of Egypt, I was certainly awaiting a messianic Chuck Heston to part the atmospheric waters.  Sadly, he didn’t seem to have received the memo.

But I get ahead of myself…
 

(Night before the race, at SushiKo in Chevy Chase)

Met John for dinner and had some nice raw fish and seaweed.  John got wine off the menu by talking up the sommelier.  Of course.  He brought my race bike (kept at his house-much safer than my ground-floor apartment) and a set of wheels for Walkersville.

Tracy:  “Which wheels did you bring?”

John:  “The Boras.  They’re nice”

Tracy:  “Well, of course, but it’s supposed to be really windy tomorrow.”

John:  “Well, they’re still faster than the clinchers.  And they’re nice.”

Tracy, pursing her lips:  “Yea, I guess so.  We’ll see how they do.”

 
(The next morning, just after warming up with Liz)

The wind was beyond description, really.  The Boras were definitely not the preferred wheelset.  So, I pulled off the front one, kept the back one, since my weight helped keep it on the ground, and replaced the front with the Neutron clincher.  I had commented to Liz the week before at Jeff Cup that Walkersville was a fine course, as long as the wind wasn’t too bad.  So much for that forethought.  And to give you a sense of how gusty it was, one of the girls was blown over not once, but twice, during staging.  It was going to be a long morning.

There were about 40 or so who braved the conditions to race.  Unfortunately, for us, a big chunk of them were from Team CycleLife.  Way too much green in front of me.  And not the soothing, Enya green of Team Kenda, but the in-your-face, emetic green of CycleLife.  Liz estimated eight or so.  With Marni arriving on the venue Just In Time, and Janelle under the weather, we were a bit out-numbered. 

Chris tried to get things started at the first turn into the cross-wind, but quickly realized that this would be equivalent to pushing Jello uphill.  Not happening.  On the first lap, I was in Let’s See Who’s Feeling Good mode and pushed the pace a bit up the hill, just in time for a Little Gray Rider to launch a break.  She carried a couple of CycleLifes with her, unfortunately, and I couldn’t bridge up (damn!  Where is that Turbo Button?).  The little grouplet stayed out for a lap and a half or so, thanks to the blocking efforts of CycleLife*, until we were able to bring them back in.  With the wind wearing folks down, nobody else got very far until the last time up the small hill on the back stretch.

Robin Z. and I were in the front, trash-talking, and Leslie went dashing around us, carrying her teammate Melissa and Jen from HP.  At that point, I simply didn’t have the legs to get on board.  With ABRT and a few others, we did manage to close a bit, but not quite enough.  They had their three-up sprint and the rest of us came in about 30 s later.  Liz did great and was in the mix the whole day.  Great job!

I found it amusing that the results posting included our race ages.  I started racing when the winner was about 4 years old-barely on a trike.  But, hey, the Team Kenda MA motto:  We Love Our Wrinkles and Will Kick Your Butt Anyway.  Soon.

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* We were informed repeatedly that Team CycleLife was not “blocking”, but I did miss their actual terminology.  I suggested “bollixing up,” but I believe it was rejected.  Although it was an accurate descriptor.