Swweeeeet sweeeeeet summer......
You train, your prep, your whole week is centered around a two hour block of time; but when something goes wrong and yanks the dangling carrot away, there's absolutely nothing you can do.
Mountain bike racing is tough business, man. I mean, yes, it's about the strength and the endurance, but more than anything it's your ability to deal with pain. It's your ability to buffer the pain and then to push a whole lot harder. That's what makes a fast bike racer.
Back when I was pack-fill in the Expert class in the mid-90's; a not-yet-ripe 18 years old, a flat tire to me was somewhat of an excuse that justified a "poor me" performance. But when you're in your prime, and racing in the top 5 in a regional Pro class race, a flat tire is much more of a genuine frustration.
So when this very situation occurred on Sunday, when not 2 miles from the finish something ripped through my rear tire like cold barbed steel through a sturgeon's lip; my day evaporated. Did I finish? Ya.........I went from 5th place to second-to-last in record time.....
Racing's hard lessons............................... you could shake your fists at the sky all day, or you could hold your head high and move on...
Oh - Tip of the Day: four-wheel-drifting the team car up Berthoud Pass, a'la "Euro-rally-racing" is in no way a valid pre-race warmup .........regardless of whether it helps or not..........
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