Bob Reuther... History Lesson.

I joined Wooden Wheels in 1991. At that time the team was largely a road team, but had some very strong expert mountain bikers. I was a beginner. The strongest was Bob Reuther. Bob had his pictures in a magazine sporting the WW jersey. I remember how nice he was to my wife and I as we showed up for a race at Gambrills, one of our first on WW, and he was excited that we were teammates. I was in awe. The first time I ever saw Cyclocross was a video of Bob at Nationals. For me, Bob has always been one of my heroes. This summer at the West Chester Criterium, I saw Bob and gave him a hearty cheer.

Today, with 2 laps to go, whose wheel did I find myself on. Yup Bob Reuther. At first I was like, Shit that's Bob Reuther. Then I almost filled my skinsuit with shit, as I was like "dude, you're on Ruether's wheel..." I was totally freaking out. I imagine it was what that kid was like with Weezer was like the other night.

Anyway, Ruether was taking long hard pulls at the front of our group, a couple of times I would peak around, but he seemed content to set pace. We had Kirk from Wiss, Jeff from Kennate, Rolf from Highland, and a couple other dudes in our group. I seemed to be making time up on the amphitheater of pain. My game plan was to stay near the front of the group and attack here on the final lap. Try to hide until the finish. With last week's fiasco burned in my head I wanted to be really careful.