Chapter 34: “that’s a little excessive…”

Sneered the woman as she walked by the Mighty Spot Brand/Twin Six team compound during this weekend’s 18 hours on the Farm in Richmond, Virginia. However, we learned a long time ago that success in these events is often as much dependent on the support system you have, as the line up of riders. So, where our campsite, quickly nicknamed “the Denver International Airport” may have seen a little expansive, it was in fact key to our success this weekend.

The site manned by an outstanding team of friends and family:
Wes the conqueror, Tommy Mc, Lisa V, FFAmy, Chunky Monkey, and Fitzy, were are great support and could have had their own sick team for the race, if they weren't supporting us. I should also note here that “the Denver International Airport” would have never happened without the selflessness of another teammate, Matt (run forest) who was home injured with that leg-gina. Matt was generous enough to allow us to use his truck to pull the trailer that made the race key. Thanks man.

In the end, the race went spectacularly well. All week I had a sick fear that somehow, some fatal flaw, would come back to haunts us, that somewhere I was missing a detail, or I don’t know, really, none of that mattered. We had a flawless race, no real issues, just lots of fast, smooth racing. The line up of Les (international man of mystery), fatmarc, Buddy the leg breaker, and Spot Paul rolled to victory in the expert/pro 4 man class, in the process taking the overall event, with 23 laps around the 9.3 mile loop.



The race went like this:
Rotation one we have a 4 minute lead.
Rotation two we have a 7 minute lead.
Rotation three we have a 17 minute lead.
Rotation four we have a 35 minute lead.
Rotation five we have a lap in hand.
Rotation six we get damn close to a second lap.

The venue, the course was among my all time favorites, fast flowing tight single track, with lots of undulating trail, a course that paid dividends to strong bike handling, momentum junkies, and riders who had good flow. Single Speeders had an evolutionary advantage off the bat. The climbs were steady and loaded at the end of the race, with none being what I would call long. Our team was super consistent, as no one had more than a 5 minute variance through all of their laps. That was really impressive, and frankly that consistency lead to our victory. Fastest laps for the team went like this: Les 41, Marc, 44, Buddy 47, Paul 48. The course was so much fun, that even during the last rotation, when we could have let up a bit; it was just too much fun to get off the gas.

Short lap times meant little time for rest, and I don’t think anyone really got any sleep during the event. Hell, in planning this out, when I told Tom the loop was 9.3 miles, he said, “cool, a longer lap” that didn’t quite work out. Spot Paul rode awesomely this weekend, and had so much energy around the site, he kept us all energized. Every time Paul would come back to the compound he was exclaim, “who rocks the house? The Mighty Spot Brand Twin Six rocks the house” All I could come up with was “my ass hurts” other things heard relatively consistently were, “ass master” “camel toe” “queef” and “you better eat now.” As could be imagined with this group, there was a lot of good jokes, a lot of tom foolery, in short a ton of fun. Diane and Amy are trying out for the Olympics for water ballet too.

The promoters were excellent, from the lady in the transition area with rubber gloves taking your baton bracelet and sliding it on the next team member, to the pool that racers could swim in, to the space shuttle you could drive, to the showers at what Fitzy called Camp Poonanny, because lots of hot chicks were camped in that area. Cycles Ed put on an outstanding event, at an incredible venue. Outstanding event, one that we were already talking about next year for…

Props to Joey and Conrad of team arsenal who did I think 21 laps as a duo, these guys bring some super nasty stuff to the table for sure.

Thanks again to my tremendous teammates, and friends all of their efforts. Thanks to all of our sponsors who help make this possible as well. (Spot Brand, Twin Six, Henry’s Bikes, Howard at Bike line, and Wissahickon Cyclery)

Now, does anyone have any recommendations for chapped ass? Mine is really bad.
respect
fm