Dragonballz

Me and Corey Saw 'em on Saturday night. Don't ask

Two amazing 'cross races have come and gone since my last report, and I 'spose I'll try to tell the stories one at a time. Let's start with the Bearcat Race:

Nick  & I rode The Katy Trail from Jeff City to Herman the night before the race and camped out in the Herman park. Sounds like a good idea, right? Yeah, too bad nobody told us there was a car show there the next day and there were gonna be a shit-ton of old musclecars doing burnouts in the parking lot all night and into the morning...... Oh yeah...try sleeping through that shit, whydontcha.

The first thing you need to know about any race being directed by Jeff Yielding is that it will undoubtedly be P-R-O. The attention to detail, the course layout, the volunteers...everything is perfect. I think he even controls the weather...the man is a master.

This course was very fast; The start of the race saw riders accelerating along a paved straightaway for a decent distance into a criterium-speed swooping left turn.

 

^ That's Jeff Yielding right there^ If you ever run into this man...beg him on bended knees to put on more races.

The photo above shows The short bit of pavement that led into a sharp right turn into the the grass. From there we were lead into an uphill turn to the right which swooped down into an off-camber left turn before following a much straighter path around the back of the school.

Onto the grassy uphill....Most riders either pushed or carried their bikes here. Chris Bopp decided to be a badass and just ride it. This area claimed many souls throughout the day and was an excellent place to take pictures. The picture doesn't do justice to the steepness of the hill.

Then came the fun part. A FAST downhill sweeping to the left over some rough terrain put a grin on everyone's faces before propelling us into a complicated series of tight, twisty turns. One set of barriers on an uphill ensured a maximum heartrate before leveling off and getting back on the straightaway.

This was a particularly exciting race because TRW had deployed 2 'cross virgins to embrace the sweet pain that is cyclocross. Sir Chadwick of Boston and Brandon "The Candyman" LePage pumped up their tires and oiled their chains that morning in preparation for glory. Chadwick seemed relatively calm as I recall, but The Candyman was feeling the pressure to succeed after watching his wife completely dominate the cross country 5k run earlier in the day. (Regrettably I didnt get any photos of that.)

Our two newbs did a great job of sacrificing their bodies and having a  good time:

^^I'm hoping to see this photo on the picture table at their wedding ^^

^^The Candyman was obviously calling upon the mysterious powers of his baller-ass red shorts to get such a good start. Note the sweet-striped bar tape on his rig, Nick loves putting it on that way for you if you're interested. Chris Bopp can be seen looming in the background wondering where to get some of those red shorts...

Here we see the fellas making easy work out of the uphill barriers. I think Chadwick smiled thru the entire race...

The boys made us proud and raced well, especially considering it was their first time.

(pause 10 seconds for applause to die down)

The Cat 4/Singlespeed race was pretty much all the rest of us. The singlespeeders and the Cat 4's all went out at the same time. I believe the roster was Chris Bopp, Peat, Stoney Cranmer, (who is a fucking animal and dominated on a mtb), Nick Smith, and myself.

When they said go we all took off at breakneck speed on that first straightaway. I have no idea why, but I had a lot of trouble keeping my front wheel on the ground. I got really good speed but I was bouncing all over the place. Going into the 1st turn I noted that I was in 6th place and riding way beyond my comfort zone. But that's the point of racing right, to get out of your comfort zone?

Race start is seen below:

So anyway, when we got to the run-up it was 'cross chaos as usual; Dudes slamming into one another, the sounds of feet tripping up the hill and loud gasps for oxygen; chains stripping from their cassettes as one or two ambitious racers try to ride the hill and FAIL. Then you remount the bike and ride your ass off. Taints quiver in fear as their riders gain speed on the bumpy downhill trying to get clipped back into the pedals. You grab a bigger gear and smash the pedals...choke back some vomit...repeat. Then you get to run the gauntlet of "Yielding-Engineered" twists and turns before jumping the barriers and hitting the straightaway for another lap.

Somewhere in the middle of all this chaos, Nick Smith's dreams of Bearcat victory were crushed when his chain fell to the ground. He never even got to finish the first lap. Luckily, the river of tears that ensued had no effect on the navigability of the course. This was pretty much the only photo I got of Nick all day:

 

While Peat, Stoney and Bopp were out there dominating, I somehow managed to get my cardio all out of whack and set myself up for a proper ass-kicking. I may have even been DFL for a while but I can't be sure. Stoney completely blew-my-fucking-mind when he passed me on his mountain bike while breathing through his nose. Shattered pride pushed aside, I got my shit together and got back in the race. I managed to catch up w/ Team Seagal's Casey Ryback to duke it out for what was....completely irrelevant since we were in different categories. It was fun though, we spoke at great length about our life experiences regarding wine, women and song. But all good things must come to an end, and the next time we passed the TRW easy-up I was forced to leave him behind.

Bopp got another medal, I think 3rd. I guess he was tired or something. I have no idea how the rest of us did. Before him and Peat did the Cat 3 race I got this photo of Chris pondering the meaning of life:

^^ In the end, only our esteemed colleague "Gino Felino" from the Seagal camp could outrun Peat and Chris. Unfortunately he blinked at just-the-right-moment and completely fucked up my picture. Asshole.

Here are some random shots from the day's festivities:

So now it was time to ride back to Jeff City......right? Nick decided it was too risky to ride home with his trick-chain (I guess)  so he hitched a ride with someone else. I had talked way too much shit about riding from JC to Herman, racing, and then riding home to back out now, so I swapped out the skewer and reattached the bob-trailer. I'm not going to say I was excited about the post-race 40-ish mile ride home, but it was a beautiful day and I had a tail-wind so I made pretty good time.

My parents were cool enough to get a photo of my man-breasted body as I rolled through Rhineland. (Not for the weak of stomach)

Jeff Yielding for President.

/report