America Day

Ahhhh the 4th of July, perhaps the best holiday of the year. Its a day given over to racing hot crits, eating heaping mounds of grilled meat and blowing things up... all to glorify America. To make things even better I had a British house guest over the weekend! I swear I kept my taunting to a minimum, but I did make him wear this shirt. Let's just say some Brits can take disappointment better than others. James was his name, and he's a globe-trotting PhD candidate who also happens to race for the Team Type 1 Elite team. James is a type 1 diabetic and watching him deal with that while still racing his ass off was pretty inspirational. Incidentally, he lost his British license upon arriving on US soil and had to start over as a 5. I think he got his last points towards his 2 upgrade by winning the Big Creek Lumber Criterium on Monday so if fate should lend a hand perhaps I'll get a chance to talk some more shit to him about England face to face in a race somewhere down the line.

But back to the 4th. Part of what makes this an awesome day is that a centerpiece of the celebration in my adopted home of Davis is the downtown crit. I talk a fair amount of shit around town and I like to weave epic tales of bike-racery and pretend that I'm some kind of real cyclist. For the most part people have yet to catch on to the fact that I'm just a broke-ass amateur with a nice bike. With the exception of the start of one ToC stage people around here don't have a good frame of reference; I do in fact look pretty speedy compared to the hippies, old people and drunks commuting around town. The 4th of July crit is the one time the Davis riders have to shine so that all of the guys at the shop, all the drinking buddies and all the fine ladies can continue to believe the hype that we bike racers are forced to spew in order to justify our strange, spendexy existence. So of course I came down with an illness.

(Best photos ever, courtesy of Ronnie)

No, it wasn't a brilliant Bueller moment. I really was sick. Two days before the race I woke up with a headache, a sore throat and a bad cough and it got progressively worse until 5 laps to go in the crit at which point it got way, way worse quite quickly. I shouldn't have been racing, but Bosch wanted to win on his birthday (he's such a patriot that he pulled himself out of the womb on Independence Day all those years ago), and he and the guys have been such solid teammates all year that I wanted to give back a little. The road to hot, hot misery is paved with good intentions.

I got kitted up and rolled a bit to loosen the things up after two days in bed. The legs were surprisingly decent, but the fact that I had no voice and couldn't breath was pretty disconcerting. The no voice thing was more worrying than the inability to breathe; if you've ever raced an NCNCA crit you'll know that its quite common for a situation to arise in which you might need to give a little holler for self-preservation. To make a long story short I was completely useless most of the race, made one (stupid) attack and then my throat totally closed up. It was a bit terrifying. I think I now have a pretty good idea of what its like to be severely asthmatic and if I ever laughed at your inhaler I'm sorry. I tried to get back into the train to help out, but I was worthless and in the end it didn't matter. Patrick did a great job driving things up front and Brian, well, Brian did what he does best and went stupid fast for a few hundred meters. Ronnie got a nice photo of the finish and the most delusionally optimistic bike throw I've ever seen.

Afterward a bunch of cycling folk moseyed over to Mooney's house for a little BBQ and I spent a delightful afternoon eating, resting and trying to communicate by sign language. Keith Williams has a heart of gold. Not only did he give up most of his 4th to provide neutral support for the crit, but he kicked down some bucks and made Williams Cycling the official burger sponsor of our little cycling get-together. I just drifted off there and had the most amazing day-dream about a bike with 700c, SRAM compatible all beef patties for wheels. Mmmmmmm...

I'm feeling mostly better now and yesterday was my first real ride in almost 5 days. This was not the greatest time to get sick what with San Rafael, Lodi, Boise and Cascade right around the corner, but I guess I didn't have much of a say in the matter. Now I'm off to crush nuts (probably my own) at the Putah Creek TT hosted by Davis Wheelworks. The M&M of NorCal time trialing (Moore & Mooney) have been embarrassing people out on Putah Creek lately, so I'm going to go try to win on for the little guys, who happen to be the really big guys.