Masters Racing and Senior Moments

Hard to believe the WCA series is already winding down with only 7 races left - and it's only June! At least we still have a lot of other racing options during June and July, including the Tour of America's Dairyland and Superweek.

A couple recent race reports: Dale and I did the State road race championships 2 weeks ago, as it turns out the only road race on the schedule this year (at least it has a hill!). We had a pretty good size field in the 40+ (about 50 guys), with Enzo's-PSIMET team being the largest team with 4 guys and then several other teams with 2 guys (including our very own Trek Midwest Team). Unfortunately, two guys got away early (one from Enzo and one from ISCorp) and that was all she wrote. Dale and I were pretty much the only ones who came to race (other than the two up the road!), everyone else was content to ride around for two hours and wait for the sprint, only making efforts to chase down any efforts to bridge or attack and make it a race that were initiated by Dale and I. Why do guys show up to race if they are not going to race - after all, it is a bike RACE is it not???

This past weekend, Greg, Dale, and I headed to the Tour of Galena, a two day, three stage race (see Greg's detailed report). Put it on your calendar for next year - great race and nice location. A technical, rolling prologue, a long hilly road race, and a downtown crit, and the town has plenty to do for family whom you "drag" along and places to eat and drink post-race. If you read Greg's report, you know I had a bit of a senior moment - it's a course I couldn't wait for, steep and relatively long (by Midwest standards) hills. Although we pre-rode the course in the car earlier that day, when it came to riding the course, I can only blame my mishap on a "senior moment." We crested one of the climbs and came to an intersection - rather than following the course and heading straight, I somehow thought we had to go right and as I began to head that way I see Dale coming up on my right heading the correct direction. So naturally I run into Dale, somehow manage to jump off my bike mid-crash and land standing up, but my bike hits the deck and the front derailleur shifter is no longer working (I snapped the shifting blade off) and my rear derailleur is bent in, leaving me with just the small chain ring and about 5 working cogs. I try to stay with the group, but imagine trying to keep up with the group on a 50 mph descent and the fast flats that followed while in the small chain ring and pedaling about 300 rpm! So I head back to the car and cheer for the boys from the sidelines. It was still a fun race weekend, and well worth seeing Greg doing his Scottish Erkel imitation (see the picture of his imitation)!

E Knuth