Aaron's adventure in cross country racing.

Last week you got the good and the bad, here's the ugly: I tried a cross country race. First of all, I think this name is incredibly misleading. I crossed no countries, in fact I never left the state. Despite my obvious semantic problems, I surrendered a small portion of my already small salary to USA cycling for a hour long death march.

Sunday morning started kind of rough, I woke up late, so I didn't have time to take a shower and stretch. Oh well, it's not like I'd be the only dirty kid at the mountain bike race. I mean, Kylie Krauss was showing up, so I knew I'd at least be cleaner than someone. When we showed up, I had about 40 minutes, just enough time to register and get warmed up. I changed, hopped on my bike and got about 3 feet before I realized I had a front flat. When we looked closer at the other bike on the rear rack, we noticed that the exhaust had melted a hole in the tire of the bike in front of mine. When my tire wouldn't inflate, I realized I'd have to borrow a wheel. By the time this fiasco was resolved, it was race time. I tried to stretch on the start line, but I had to accept that I was going into this race cold.

The start went well, and soon I lead when the first two guys crashed on a wet, grassy turn. I felt good, despite everything. Then my chain broke. They actually gave me a half link in my swag bag, and I brought it with me, so I was back on the course in 4 minutes. I worked my way up through some of the pack filler, and then got a flat. I've never sworn more loudly in my life. I changed it, and used a C02 to fill it up and get back on the course. By then I felt pretty damn defeated. Trying to make up for that many mistakes is hard when you only have two laps. My body was shot and my mind was racing. Not warming up, and the southern heat wore me out quicker than anything else ever has, but I was determined to climb up another spot or two. I stepped on the gas and made up a little time on some of the more technical sections. But before I knew it, my race was over, and that was all.

I got 7/12 in my age group and 21/65 in overall Cat 2. I really shouldn't complain for my first cross country race, so I'm accepting it, and going for a better result at my next race.

On the upside, Tony got 4th in single speed on a fixed cross bike, and at one point his chain blew up. That translates from Bike-ish roughly as "Tony is wicked bad ass'. Alexis DFL'ed cat 1 women and Kylie got 4th pro woman. Tony was the only one with a good race day, but we all had a good time.

I have to thank Tony and Nathan from Ski Country Sports for the rides to and from the race. Without those two awesome dudes, I wouldn't have even gotten to try this stuff out.

The two highlights of my race were being the only dude hitting the double on the race course. Granted it wasn't much of a double, but still, it was the most fun part of the "abridged" beginner race course.

And if you've read the previous post, you remember the dude I ride past on the morning on my way to work. Well he was at Davidson, and we got to hang out for a while. Small world.

So far the only one of my posts that anyone has commented on consists solely of a picture of me shirtless. And that was from Lyndon. If that's what you guys want, just let me know. I got plenty of glamor shots.