Dan Action

Light Fuse and Get Away October 20, 2008

Fireworks had always held a touch of mischievous intrigue for me. Not a bit lessened by the moment of anxious waiting between when a fuse catches and the gunpowder takes effect. It happens so fast, but not too fast, so you’re waiting in one of those slow and charged moments. And then there’s the charge itself, though not as destructive as you really want it to be given the tension you feel by lighting one.
A similar parable could be found in this past weekend’s cross race: Wissahickon Cross. The area’s premiere UCI racing double header. Many folks from Boston came down and in that group were a number of my teammates. It was great to catch up and even host some good friends at my house, complete with a nice night out on the town.
But to continue my metaphor, I will get right down to the ever so short details of my race, the entire reason to show my face at some vacant horse trainng facility in somewhere Pennsylvania.
I can tell you this: one lap, two crashes, no more race.
I got a shitty start since I was left at the alter waiting for a call-up. Apparently MAC points don’t neccessitate any kind of decent stasting position here in the country. I waited, perhaps vainly, to hear my name be called and probably mangled as most people tend to either trip their way over a semi-french pronounciation or garble something out in “plain English” that bears no resemblance to the phonetic sound of my name. As I waited, everyone else must’ve gotten over themseves and lined up, leaving me to inch in to a smal nook in the back. HHmph. The start was dusty and pretty scetchy, but I tried to gain some ground. It was hard to see exactly where the course was going through the dust. I took a good run through a bottle-necked section and made up some places, sat behind someone through a few turns, then decided it was time to move up. I tried t do so on a sweeping turn, but the rider I was to pass was non-plussed about my move and wanted to move me over. I was in a pretty decent veer and the effort to try to still get around my blocking colleague saw me tumbling to the ground at a rapid speed. Dismayed, I rose and hit various parts of my bike to a semblance of straight, and proceeded to hit the gas again. Hit it I did, up the barriers, and back on the bike pedaling like crazy. I felt a mixture of over confidence and who-the-fuck-cares going into a certain section it would be wise to take caution on and went into it way too hot. Down I went. Pretty hard too, My elbow dug into my ribs as I landed, winding me, and my neck stiffened up as I tried to take stock of the situation. I decided to pick up the bike and try to get on even with my brain sounding sort of an alarm not to do so, but alas, a section of my tire unseated in the crash, there would be no riding on it. And feeling the pain start to give me a decent nausea, there was not to be any running to the pit. Game Over.
In all that tension wound in that first 2/3 lap, I feel a bit robbed to not have let it out in the race, instead I feel diminished. I guess that’s what is going to get me out to the next race, and put me on form.

I’ve Been To The Races Too. October 6, 2008

I will tell more of these stories starting from a fresh keyboard which is destined to be under my fingertips tomorrow morning, but for now I will let all who are interested know that I still do race cyclocross and still, I enjoy it like I enjoy nothing else.

Charm City is another name for Baltimore. The act of charming people is probably devious the way that I think of it, which is sort of like hypnotizing someone, or maybe like one would charm a snake. Either way, I call it dubious. If I seemed entranced at this race of the same title, it was because I was at it from way too early to probably way too late. Lenore can attest to it as well. The race went ok for me, being the first race and all. I had a good start and went onto the course in the top ten or so. I found the right lines and quickly gained ground. You can probably read a decent re-cap on the results page from the race, or wherever else you see something about Charm City cx race posted. I got a good mentioning in the write up. Though, not mentioned was the reason I fell from the fight for 3rd. Like a dumb dumb, I put my head to to wallow in pain for a second, or to make sure my shoes were still on, which ever you prefer, and set my front wheel in a big hole. That shook me up and in the couple of seconds it took for me to make the mental check to be sure I wasn’t going down or I didn’t hurt my beautiful new bike, Steve and Andy attacked. All I could counter with was holding the gap where it was and riding parallel. Too bad. But fifth is not too awful, I enjoyed the podium low point just fine and still walked off with some change it the ol’ pocket.

Hillbilly Hustle. I got an awful start due to my slowish reaction time to the start whistle. The official made no attempt at a countdown and as soon as “on my whistle” was said, it blew, then I bewilderdly tried to reach my pedals. I went into the woods 12 wheel or so on a course that bottlenecked fast and got all single-file like. I made some dicey moves and some less risky to get up as many wheels as I could see, which found me riding with Rickey from the Exodus team, then followed by 15 yr. old phenom., Jeff B. The two of the were eager to attack and since there was no one to be seen ahead or behind I let them get in front of me. I mean, there was six laps to go still, so I just trailed them and I knew they weren’t riding a ot of the course that well, waited for them to make mistakes and attack then, when I knew I could gap them good. My chances came when Rickey got wrapped up in the tape in the slow and soft “S” turn, and then one more time when Jeff clipped a barrier and went down. I got around no problem and then all the voices in my head were ATTACk!!!! So I did, and held the two of them off to take third for the day. The race was well done and the course was killer. Lost of fast turning without hitting the brakes. The file tread Challenge tubulars loved the course. On the way home Nathalie and I hit up an orchard stand and picked up a huge jug of cider and a big bag of Empire apples. The past few nights I’ve been making baked apples. It makes our house seem all seasonal and warm.

Photo form Democats.com

Orange Blossom Special

Well, computer life has been strained over the past two weeks. My laptop shit the bed and Nathalie needs hers for school more than I need to ramble on and type real slow, so no postings of late. I get a new computer tomorrow and that should get me on here a lot more regularly.

Tonight on my way home from work I had to stop and let a train pass on the tracks that follow the river through downtown Philly, that is to say,the tracks sever me from my house quite definitely. I could climb the stairs and pass over them unharmed, but what do I look like; an able bodied human? I mean I’ve got a bike to carry and my commute home is no cross race.

Regardless of my laziness, this was no run of the mil freight cutting across my path. This was the Tropicana train. Close to a mile of cars all done up in orange. If you’ve ever heard the Johnny Cash song “Orange Blossom Special” this is the train to which the songs title refers to. Back in the days that I used to ride Freight trains to get all over the place, this is one of the ones I always wanted to ride. The train is one of the only non-stop, east coast high-priority trains. Pretty much a 24 hour ride from Jacksonville, Fl to here. Not many other trains can boast such efficient travel up or down the Eastern seaboard. The tracks of the nation are laid out much like the highways; the east is a jumbled mess of sorts and it tapers out to a few main routes north/south and east/west as you draw across the map. Not to mention all the different lines that own the tracks of certain regions makes it hard to get a ride more than a few hours in any direction while riding in the east. It was nice to see this train, in part because I knew it would not stop too long and keep me from getting home. Oh yeah, just in case you were all like ” I’m gonna ride that train like Johnny Cash or Jimbo Credit (not having a great time right now)”, I  will tell you that there are no ride-able freight cars at all on it. The trick is you have to ride it in one of the engines. No feat for the hesitant or timid.