|
Cross in the Glen, Week #3 |
|
|
Team Bikeman -
Race Reports
|
|
Written by Sven Cole
|
|
Thursday, 01 November 2007 |
Cross in the Glen, Week #3 - Crazy Race
Great Glen Trails
Pinkham Notch
October 27, 2007
 | | click to enlarge |
Interesting race up at Great Glen Trails this weekend. It was week three of the Cross in the Glen series and it was again spitting a bit of snow and the air temp was a wee bit chilly. I had headed up thinking it was going to be in the upper 40's lower 50's, so that was what I had for clothing - but when I got up there I was a bit cooler (lower 30's).
Do you get made fun of if you race in those Lake MXZ301 winter shoes? I think I need to get a pair of those! I had even managed to leave all my hats at home, but was able to negotiate a deal with pro rider Ward Solar (who was up visiting family not sand bagging just looking for a win) - so I traded him the use of the Surly Cross-Check set up as a SS with a 42x17 for the skull cap - seemed like a good trade. Ward had brought his race bike, but thought it would be more interesting to race on the SS.
 | | click to enlarge |
We lined up for the start and this week I did a better job of making sure I knew who was in the Elite and who was in the Intermediate categories. I had a good start riding fourth wheel for the first lap and then surrendering a couple spots for the rest of the race. I chased Valley newcomer Dan Fontainilles for awhile but just didn't have the legs to bridge up so I eased up a bit to ride with Dan Doherty and Mark D¹Amour. Dan did take a half lap pull but it became clear that I was going to be taking the wind, so with three to go I put in an effort to drop my two riding buddies and low and behold almost ran into a car as I made the turn for the bridge.
Yup, you read that right, a car out on the course in the middle of a cross race at Great Glen. How did it get there, considering how many barriers he had to drive around/through and all the cones he mowed down getting down to the bridge? Hmmm, because the driver is a jackass? I really don't know - other than I stopped and used a bunch of bad language while screaming at the driver to turn around and get off the course, I then remounted and kept on racing.
Now in retrospect I should have stopped my race and escorted the car off the course - but it was one of those things that happened so fast and my brain was in race mode that I thought screaming at him would do the trick (he did hear me as his window was down and my face was only a couple of feet from him). I kept going but to be honest my racing mindset had been a bit messed up - I was more focused on getting to the start finish to let Eli know what was going on so he could deal with it.
Dan, Mark and I were discussing the insanity of it all and we looked down to the field and could see Ward chasing the car across the field - a pretty funny sight. Of course what we didn't see was the guy trying to run Ward over after the driver got "scared by this guy on a bike telling us what to do." Too bad Ward didn't have his BIG truck to run the SOB down!
Anyway Mary Powers (you may know her as the race director for the MW Hill Climb) ended up driving over and bringing the guy back after he made his return back down the auto road, not sure the details of how that all went down, but he was sitting there in his Nissan Altima with his wife (I assume) and their lap dog. He was smoking a butt and having to deal with the comments all the racers were making as they cooled down in the parking lot - many not aware that the car and driver everyone was talking about was sitting right there. A short bit later the State Police showed up and as I was loading my bikes I see the driver start to get mouthy with the trooper, and next thing you know he's wearing those fancy bracelets that all the cool kids are wearing, you know the ones with both hands behind the back - then he got to sit in the "timeout" seat in the back of the cruiser. We all cheered and called it a day.
So not much of a race report- in fact I'm not even sure what the final outcome was - I do know that Ward was about to lap the field on the borrowed SS before he went out and tried to play Robo-cop. But he pulled himself out of the race, then jumped back in for a lap to try and knock me off my bike just for fun.
Either way an interesting day out on the bike.
Next weekend is Porky Gulch Classic it should be a good one!
Sven
 |
; "click to enlarge")
; "click to enlarge")
Show/Hide comment form
