Video Update

Hey. As an addition to my complaint about Chandler's dumb ass race tactics. Here's video proof of his encounter with a brightly painted stump.

NBX Cat 3 Bar Cam Bonus Footage from colin reuter on Vimeo.

nice

Back 'er up

Hey here's a couple of round ups from races.

Lowell way back: Front row start next to stars and stripes. (Thanks sandbaging/being fast!) I was holding my own with the front group, whom I arguably had no business being with, for the first lap. And was working too hard. But I felt like I could hang for a while. But then I decided to take an alternate line coming onto the track around the ball field. And it was a horrible line, I hit a post went way or course, had to dodge the tape to get back on track, and lost the lead group. So I was in the chase.
On the next lap a couple of juniors hit it way too hard for a sixty minute race.
My race settled into a battle between Matt Myette, Chris Hamlin and me.
I had raced against Chris last weekend and Paradise cross and was hoping I could prevail again.

Sure enough Chris led for too long, and on the last lap when he decided to pull over and let someone else take a turn, it was all systems go, and Matt hung on to my wheel as we opened enough of a cushion. Through the last few turns I had no choice but to try and hit it hard and hope to toast Matt. It was enough and he let me hold on to a 9th place finish. Bummer I made such a bone head move in the beginning. But we had a good race and you have to take chances some wheres.


Day two at NBX was pretty vanilla. The highlights were that: the first lap wasn't as hard as it was on Saturday; Chandler didn't crash in front of me; I mached any attacks; I followed Nate Morse for a while, but once Adam St. Germain started catching up I took off for the win. Yeah, great, a win...man I need to upgrade.


Ice weasels.
Not only did I get heckled for racing the 3's the past two weekends, I got heckled for warming up period, warming up on a trainer. and not drinking beer before the race.
I broke my seatpost on lap three or so, by not finding my pedals as I rode down the fly over. The next two laps were ridding sans saddle. Which is way trickier than you may think. For sitting and for balance, plus remounting is really hard.
Thank you thank you goes out to Matt for rustling me up a bike with egg beaters on it. So awesome man, thanks! I don't think I could have done eight more laps without a saddle.

Since I rode for three laps without a saddle and rode the rest of the race on a new/random bike and still ended up 4th, I think it's safe to say I didn't take enough beer feeds...or carrot or cabbage feeds. sigh...

NBX Cross Race Report, day 1

Man it was cold this weekend. And really windy down there in Warwick(really East Gloucester). Nice and sunny on Saturday and lets start there.

I took my place next to the juniors as usual. Yeah, yeah and Ryan, and Chandler. Word around the heated bath-house was how flat the course was. "It's a grass crit!" "Hope you brought your road bike!" "You good at road racing?" "Total power course!" True, it definitely was not a very interesting course. But there was no riding the beach, so that made it interesting.

I think the most interesting part was the way the start worked out. We started on the pavement and had ages of room before we entered grass, tape and a couple of turns. But still it was so wide that the group/mass didn't break up, and there was lots of looking around to see what was going on and scoping moves.
I was up in the front and had to play some defense as we came into the first hairpin, where things got a little sticky. I rode around second into the back stretch before the sand and fricken Nate Morse had a date with the ground as he tried to make the sketchiest passes in the loose gravel. Seriously, just settled down! There's a huge train of people wheel to wheel. No one's going any where here.

The juniors led us around wicked hard, and I thought to me self, "This is hard. There's no way any of these guys can keep this up, if I'm having to work this hard..." But still as Curtis dangled out the front, I asked Chandler, "Can he really keep that up and stay out there?" The answer was decidedly NO.

So we made it around the course up the ride up, and almost to the carousel when Chandler got the boneheaded idea to pass Nate on the inside of an S turn. Seriously! Seriously...not only was that a retarded place to pass.(wait 'till we come out of a turn, or it's straight!) BUT THERE ARE STUMPS PAINTED BRIGHT ORANGE!!! Seriously Chandler? Seriously...

Yeah. So. Needless to say Chandler stacked it up on the bright orange stump and I had no choice but to pin his leg into his frame and fall down. The good news was that Ryan White fell with us, and that seemed to break his spirits for the day. A few people avoided our melee and got by. Namely Adam St Germain.

My stem was tweaked, and I had to stop at the barriers to (kind of) correct it. At that point I was feeling pretty dejected, and thought the race was riding away. But anything can happen, so I gave it a go. I passed by Chandler and give him a consolatory pat on the back, and then put my head down. I was surprised and pleased to see Kris Dobie rocking the Putney kit right in front of me. Plus the target Donny Green was not too far down the road.

On the last lap I saw Donny slip out on the turn going into the barriers and that was all I needed to put on the gas and pull him in. But to tell you the truth it's almost scary being behind that kid. For someone who rides his bike all day as a messenger, his lack of handling skills is staggering. On the pavement before the bathhouse, I watched as he went off the pavement (on a wide open two lane road) and nearly flipped over the guard rail. I did not want to be the caboose on his train...wait is that dirty?

So I passed him, and almost caught St Germain, ARg so close! 2nd!