Sep 25, 2008

I’m about to get all emo

Or maybe I’m just full of self-conceit. Awe, who cares? Last night was cool – one of the coolest races ever. I went out to Vegas to race Cross Vegas with multiple world and national champions, Olympic medalists, and a dude who has won some pretty major bike races, including the Tour de France, 7 times. Talk about a media storm.

I don’t know what the coolest part was: getting to race with Lance Armstrong, Christoph Sauser and Thomas Frischknect; or, getting to race under the lights in front of thousands of spectators. With the exception of a few parts of the race course, most of it was lined with screaming fans, drunk hecklers, and popping flash bulbs. I wish all bike races were like that. Of course, it didn’t hurt that the start list was so heavily weighted with big names and the bike convention was in town too.

My race itself isn’t much to blog about. I forgot how hard cyclocross is. From the back I started strong and stayed in the mix for a few laps, but then I came apart and couldn’t maintain the pace so I just tried to stick it out and savor the moment. How often do you get to race with guys like Armstrong, Sauser, and Frischknect? I’ve had a long month so I wasn’t expecting much. Normally I’d be bummed about a poor performance, but after taking a proverbial step back and realizing the competition, I have nothing to complain about. I just wish Ryder was there with his cow bell.

I stuck to Lance's rear wheel while doing my warm-up laps, but come race time Mellow Johnny turned it up a notch. After missing the split and crashing, he finished 22nd.


I'm somewhere caught up in this first lap mess.

LA, Chance Noble, & the hindquarters of Steve Tilford ride off into the night.

Oh, I guess I should mention that Trebon won.

More photos coming soon. In the meantime, check this out.

2 comments:

Chris Kasey said...

That Rules!

C.K.

Christie said...

i am so glad you loved it up there! i was sad to miss this year. looks like the crowd doubled from last year (and i thougth LAST year was awesome!) Looks like the same painful course though... :)