losing my denverginity on 6.6.6
today i raced in my first alleycat here in denver. it's gonna be long, so the blow-by-blow is below the .
theorectically i get out of work at 5:30, but, food service being what it is, i'm done when the job is done. the race starts, theoretically, at 6 pm. but, alleycats being what they are, i got out of work at about 6:25, and got to the bar/start/finish about ten minutes later... forgeting to get money for the *$15* entry fee. i get in the door and realize my first mistake and curse loudly. the door person spots me the six extra dollars i needed on the promise that i pay him back ten on return. sure. whatever.
i sit down on the stage area with about thirty other bikers who already have maps, a redbull and a couple deviled eggs before them. deviled eggs continue to be passed out for the next fifteen minutes until all the racers have no less than eight deviled eggs.
--meanwhile, i look at the map. all 5 checkpoints form a sweeping curve trough the grid-like city, but nothing's very far away. i estimate the whole course to be about 7 miles tops. i notice a couple people have simply written all the addresses on thier arms. i decide this is a good idea and follow suit. one thing that makes me happy about this race, is that i did not once have to refer to a map after the start. even racing the east side crit during the provide races in providence, i had to look at the map once or twice because the course was so f'ing crooked.--
so they call START and we all being stuffing ourselves with eight deviled (half) eggs. i've never been good at speed eating, chugging, shotgunning, funelling, or any of that stuff. one guy finishes somehow in about 15 seconds. two thirds of the racers finish before me. at some point somone runs past while i'm still eating and a gob of yellow deviled egg yolk hits me in the eye. i eat about five and stuff the other three in my mouth and split. by the time i leave there's egg all over my gloves, and face, shirt, shorts... you get the idea. most of those last three i ended up spitting out while shooting up 15th st., which many others did as well.
let me say now that this became the most challenging aspect of the race. i was fucking nauseous the rest of the time, and i wasn't the only one. because i showed up late, i don't know if there was any sort of vegan option to the first challenge, but no one i saw seemed to care about that.
with such a direct course, it was easy to simply follow the other riders to the first few checkpoints. at c.p.#1 we were all given two swatches of colored paper with numbers on the back. at c.p.#2 we were given two pieces of tape to apply these swatches to the appropriate place on Large print outs of two diff't album covers. one was iron maiden's "number of the beast, which made me smile. (i had the devil's left elbow.) the other i didn't recognize, and didn't stop to figure out. i thnk it was man-o-war, but i'm not positive.
going to c.p.#3 i foolishly decided that the racer i was behind was going a less efficient way. i was wrong. this was probably the biggest unecessary time kill for me. i can happily say that any time i was trailing just about anybody, no gaps lengthened, any time i lost was due to lack of city knowlege, which, without a map, i still did pretty good. the new cranks/chainring really paid off. i am certain i'd have done much poorer with the previous set-up. in a couple previous races, i was getting smoked on pure skill right from the start. so this is a decided improvement.
at c.p.#4 there was a Large print out of a word find, with lots of really fucking obscure satanic words, and witchy words, and stuff like that. you had to find one word on the list before continuing. the list included words like "walpurgistnact," and other shit in german. i lost a lot of time here. the word i eventually found i'd never heard of in my entire life, and i don't have the fucking slightest as to what it means, or even what it is right now.
at c.p.#5 which i passed once because i thought 6 was an odd number, so it should be on the west side of the street... did i mention i was goddamn nauseous and RACING?... at c.p.#5 was the devil himself all deviled-out in a bright red suit with hood and horns, and bright red boycut panties over the suit like a gay devil supervillain. the devil, of course, demanded that a contract be signed in red ink, of course, renouncing ownership of your soul AND your bike to the devil. because, of course, your bike is part of your soul. which is true. then he takes your photo holding up the signed contract before moving on.
at about 13th i realized i was trailing skazat whom i saw finally, for the first time, but did not get to greet back at the start because of my uncontrollable lateness. i chased him. i wasn't about to kill myself, but he was the only thing between me and the finish that i could possibly pass. didn't happen. we caught a few bad lights, and he got to make the most of them, by being 100ft. ahead. i pulled in about 5 seconds behind justin, placing 19th out of about 22 or 25 finishers.
the cash prizes were fairly hefty. the schwag included a set of bars, a bag, and a set of tires between the top three, as well as some pretty damn cool sunglasses for being first at the first couple c.p.'s.
actually getting a t-shirt in my size with the hella cool flyer on it made the 15/21 dollar entry fee worth it. somehow, i missed getting a spoke card. i did get one of the pbr combo caribeener/bottle openers though, which are not too chintzy to use for real.
later there was a trackstand comp that i did much better at. there was a set of dominoes on the line, so you know i was on it like flies on shit. i lasted straight through 3 minutes of two-hands, two minutes of one-hand, and a minute of no-hands with nary a glitch. when it came to one-foot time though, i pretty much lost it right there. this is one thing the old, slightly longer cranks were really good for. also, i had the very good sense to tension the shit out of my chain in anticipation of the trackstand shit. i ended up being 3rd or 4th out of 8 very good, but tired and still slightly nauseous, riders. one and two went down not long after me.
so i think that's about everything of any interest. as for c.p.#3 which i sort of glossed over, i can't actually remember what the object/challenge was... ? funny. next race next week. oh, at the finish we got back the contracts signed with the perverted devil. i feel like i should burn it, jic, but... the devil still has a photo of me holding it up and smiling like a moron. so simply destroying the paper may not be enough to save my immortal soul.
...if you believe in that shit.
theorectically i get out of work at 5:30, but, food service being what it is, i'm done when the job is done. the race starts, theoretically, at 6 pm. but, alleycats being what they are, i got out of work at about 6:25, and got to the bar/start/finish about ten minutes later... forgeting to get money for the *$15* entry fee. i get in the door and realize my first mistake and curse loudly. the door person spots me the six extra dollars i needed on the promise that i pay him back ten on return. sure. whatever.
i sit down on the stage area with about thirty other bikers who already have maps, a redbull and a couple deviled eggs before them. deviled eggs continue to be passed out for the next fifteen minutes until all the racers have no less than eight deviled eggs.
--meanwhile, i look at the map. all 5 checkpoints form a sweeping curve trough the grid-like city, but nothing's very far away. i estimate the whole course to be about 7 miles tops. i notice a couple people have simply written all the addresses on thier arms. i decide this is a good idea and follow suit. one thing that makes me happy about this race, is that i did not once have to refer to a map after the start. even racing the east side crit during the provide races in providence, i had to look at the map once or twice because the course was so f'ing crooked.--
so they call START and we all being stuffing ourselves with eight deviled (half) eggs. i've never been good at speed eating, chugging, shotgunning, funelling, or any of that stuff. one guy finishes somehow in about 15 seconds. two thirds of the racers finish before me. at some point somone runs past while i'm still eating and a gob of yellow deviled egg yolk hits me in the eye. i eat about five and stuff the other three in my mouth and split. by the time i leave there's egg all over my gloves, and face, shirt, shorts... you get the idea. most of those last three i ended up spitting out while shooting up 15th st., which many others did as well.
let me say now that this became the most challenging aspect of the race. i was fucking nauseous the rest of the time, and i wasn't the only one. because i showed up late, i don't know if there was any sort of vegan option to the first challenge, but no one i saw seemed to care about that.
with such a direct course, it was easy to simply follow the other riders to the first few checkpoints. at c.p.#1 we were all given two swatches of colored paper with numbers on the back. at c.p.#2 we were given two pieces of tape to apply these swatches to the appropriate place on Large print outs of two diff't album covers. one was iron maiden's "number of the beast, which made me smile. (i had the devil's left elbow.) the other i didn't recognize, and didn't stop to figure out. i thnk it was man-o-war, but i'm not positive.
going to c.p.#3 i foolishly decided that the racer i was behind was going a less efficient way. i was wrong. this was probably the biggest unecessary time kill for me. i can happily say that any time i was trailing just about anybody, no gaps lengthened, any time i lost was due to lack of city knowlege, which, without a map, i still did pretty good. the new cranks/chainring really paid off. i am certain i'd have done much poorer with the previous set-up. in a couple previous races, i was getting smoked on pure skill right from the start. so this is a decided improvement.
at c.p.#4 there was a Large print out of a word find, with lots of really fucking obscure satanic words, and witchy words, and stuff like that. you had to find one word on the list before continuing. the list included words like "walpurgistnact," and other shit in german. i lost a lot of time here. the word i eventually found i'd never heard of in my entire life, and i don't have the fucking slightest as to what it means, or even what it is right now.
at c.p.#5 which i passed once because i thought 6 was an odd number, so it should be on the west side of the street... did i mention i was goddamn nauseous and RACING?... at c.p.#5 was the devil himself all deviled-out in a bright red suit with hood and horns, and bright red boycut panties over the suit like a gay devil supervillain. the devil, of course, demanded that a contract be signed in red ink, of course, renouncing ownership of your soul AND your bike to the devil. because, of course, your bike is part of your soul. which is true. then he takes your photo holding up the signed contract before moving on.
at about 13th i realized i was trailing skazat whom i saw finally, for the first time, but did not get to greet back at the start because of my uncontrollable lateness. i chased him. i wasn't about to kill myself, but he was the only thing between me and the finish that i could possibly pass. didn't happen. we caught a few bad lights, and he got to make the most of them, by being 100ft. ahead. i pulled in about 5 seconds behind justin, placing 19th out of about 22 or 25 finishers.
the cash prizes were fairly hefty. the schwag included a set of bars, a bag, and a set of tires between the top three, as well as some pretty damn cool sunglasses for being first at the first couple c.p.'s.
actually getting a t-shirt in my size with the hella cool flyer on it made the 15/21 dollar entry fee worth it. somehow, i missed getting a spoke card. i did get one of the pbr combo caribeener/bottle openers though, which are not too chintzy to use for real.
later there was a trackstand comp that i did much better at. there was a set of dominoes on the line, so you know i was on it like flies on shit. i lasted straight through 3 minutes of two-hands, two minutes of one-hand, and a minute of no-hands with nary a glitch. when it came to one-foot time though, i pretty much lost it right there. this is one thing the old, slightly longer cranks were really good for. also, i had the very good sense to tension the shit out of my chain in anticipation of the trackstand shit. i ended up being 3rd or 4th out of 8 very good, but tired and still slightly nauseous, riders. one and two went down not long after me.
so i think that's about everything of any interest. as for c.p.#3 which i sort of glossed over, i can't actually remember what the object/challenge was... ? funny. next race next week. oh, at the finish we got back the contracts signed with the perverted devil. i feel like i should burn it, jic, but... the devil still has a photo of me holding it up and smiling like a moron. so simply destroying the paper may not be enough to save my immortal soul.
...if you believe in that shit.