Gawd I hate being a DNF. Not the first time I've DNF'd Vandervorts either. Vandervort's Corner my arse. They ought to call it Big Butt Corner, cause this is a race for the big butts-the locomotive asses, the flatlander muscle bound big gear grinding neanderthals who represent the mudders of the cycling world, the guys who can't climb to save their you-know-whats. These are the guys who don't look like cyclists-at least not like the ones we see in Velonews-but we see them every weekend surging to the front of the pack when the hills come so they can drift back as the pack passes and they just hope to survive for a mass sprint finish. They have chips on their shoulders as big as their fat (theres that word again) butts and man do they salivate at the prospect of putting a hurting on us skinny whimpy guys when races like this come up on the calendar. So knowing this in advance and being sore enough from my little mis-hap of yesterday that geting in and out of the car caused involuntary wincing, I knew I was in trouble. I warned Mr. Caminati (good to see you Steve) there was no way to warm up enough for this race, the start would be full-gas and I was proven correct. This race always feels more like a crit than a RR-lots of turns and hard accelerations out of them and even in the straightaways there are lots of surges at full tilt boogie for no apparent reason. Buncha neanderthal, mudder, knuckle dragging, simians I tell you. All with their damned deep dish carbon wheels and loud squeeky brakes. Ever notice that among the power laden flatlanders, lycra shoe covers are more prevalent than over the average bike racer crowd by a factor of ten? Explain that to me please-their average power laden full frontal crotchal area is 150% of your average finesse rider's full frontal crotchal area but they think they can make up for it with shoe covers? What really hoses me off is that the majority of the 50 or so guys in our pack can just accelerate sufficiently in the saddle with no apparent duress. Not me-I had to repeatedly get up on my pedals and thrash about like some hyperkinetic kid who drank espresso and forgot his Ritalin just to generate enough horse power to maintain contact, and after a while that takes a toll on you. I almost got dropped in the cross wind section after the narrow S curve but thanks to some dump truck parked right in the road was able to maintain contact and then continued to plug away for three more laps but I was hurting big time and having zero fun. At the start of lap five I let Steve know I was pulling the rip cord and rode alone for one more lap doing my best not to let the Cat 4s catch me (small victory) so I at least got 40 miles in. Did I tell you how much I hate this course and a huge chunk of my fellow cyclists (all from other teams, mind you)? But hey, I must say Michelob Ultra fka Team Dayton did a great job organizing this race and I do hope good guy Dan Waite of that team finished high up.
