Heckler's Corner

Saturday of the Iowa State Cross Race was going to be a really good day. The original plan was to ride out to the race from Norwalk, watch/cheer/heckle riders and drink a couple of beers. For the ride there, I had the directions and everything necessary for the weather and riding.The start of the ride was good. I knew where i was going, wore just enough stuff to keep warm and the Masi was running as it should. I came to a red light in the east village and when it turned green and I got going again, my fucking chain snapped. After I coasted across  the street, the inevitable happened, the bike went airborne. When the bike landed, the first thing i noticed was the scraped up bar tape and flat front tire. Turns out it was much worse than that. There was a hole in the sidewall of the front tire (2 and a half sets of cross tires at home, so no big deal) and this:




Looks like it's new bar time.

After all that happened, I called and got someone to bring me a chain and ended up getting a ride the rest of the way to Lions park in Altoona. Once I got there, the ss/junior race was just getting over. I got there in time to see this in action:

Coaster brake action with sweet wide bars. It was also cool to see another Brew frame, I have a Brew bmx bike. The SSCXWC Raleigh ss cross bike was awesome too. It had the only acceptable use of a colored chain that I've seen so far, and I've seen plenty of bikes with colored chains. Watched the women's and 1/2  race from the finish line and ate some of the free food and drank a beer. It was very good.

For the 3 race, i headed to heckler's corner. Started with a couple of people climbing up top of the shelter , then it became beer can alley with a couple of beer cans containing dollar bills. The quantity of beer cans increased through out the race, as did the rider participation and volume. Overall, it was a  very fun race, even though I didn't even race and I'm gonna need new bars. At least I have one ride able bike...a 20" bmx bike.

Today was more interesting than i though it was gonna be.

The day wasn't quite interesting enough to broadcast it to the internet so here goes.

Started out good, my earliest class on tuesdays and thursdays got over so I slept in. On the way to my new first class, the car hiccuped a little bit leaving norwalk, but I didn't think anything of it. Turns out it was a sign that I pushed how far I could drive on a tank of gas too far. Finally ran out when I on the interstate and a cop eventually came to the rescue. Only time in my life when I was happy to see flashing red and blue light roll up on me. He gave me a ride to a gas station and got the whole situation figured out. Made it to the first class about 45 minutes late...my stubbornness to not fuel up finally bit me in the ass.

Fast forward to 6:00, it was my first DMOS training session. Good god you sweat a lot when you pedal in place, intervals no less.