Now that you've had time to process your shock and excitement at that declaration, I'll level with you: this was not the most prestigious race I've ever won. In fact, I was hesitant to even call it a legitimate race until I saw that British Cycling had awarded me bona fide points for it. Those sweet, sweet points have shot me up the national rankings. Look out, Britain, this Yank means business. I'm gonna claw my way to the top of the heap one chipper crit at a time!
The race was the Stan Jones Paramount Circuit Race #2. (We all know how highly regarded races are that feature a series number. Ugh.) Team Raleigh had no big races on the sched so a whole troop of blue smurfs turned out for this race, meaning we had 7 riders in a field of about 40. I like those odds. The course was a purpose built circuit in an L shape with a 180 turn on each end, the second one being a real screamer. (Sorry I don't have any photos, but just picture your favorite NRC crit and then double the number of spectators.)
There's really not much to say about that race. Our team rode hard out for 60 minutes, but nothing got away, and then my boys rallied at the front to give me a stellar leadout. Despite some interesting timing and poor gear choice on my part I managed to snag the dub and thus crack the seal on 2011. Hopefully it's the first of many and not the most prestigious. They had locker rooms again at this race and they were definitely one of the highlights of the day. Liam rolled a 3rd, and G6 4th which meant we all made back our entry fees + enough skrilla for a cup of coffee. Bonus.
On Sunday I got to roll my first British RR, the Evesham Vale. Again the team laid it down, zwaffling the field and cleaning up the first 4 spots in the race and landing 6 guys in the top 10. There were some strong dudes in the race, but as you may have guessed the field was missing some riders from the other big teams. Whatever. Races like that are a total blast to ride, they're good for the confidence and for team bonding, and so long as we didn't make any lifelong enemies then it's all in good fun.
I've been blitzing all over the country again, playing chicken with tanks, sipping drinks in the officer's mess, scoping Stonehenge and pulling a Rip Van Winkle, but more on that later. Time to strip down to my skivvies and go sprint in the sunshine. Booyah!
5 comments:
How embarrassing I had to delete my first comment because I spelled your name wrong and forgot an 'e' at the end of your name. So this is what I wanted to say:
Parnes, I'm Proudayou!!!!!!
that is all.
Awww, T-Bear. Very sweet of you to keep up with these inane ramblings. I hope all is well with you back on the sunny side. I hope I haven't missed any more of your mom's dance moves!
My favorite part of this blog post is how you abbreviate "schedule" with "sched".
That comes from living with a wacky Canadian. Have you read that kid's blog? You need a cool-kid dictionary to understand. He also talks like that all the time, which is awesome, but I've picked up some of his habits while translating for the locals.
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