It's all so clear to me know.

Maggie...In the beginning.

After seeing the Maggie post, a friend back in Michugina said he probably had a photo of her lashed to a rig. It occurred to me that if he had one, I prolly did too. 15 minutes later, I had it! A little outta focus, but you get point. The photos are circa 1992-1993. The bike, a Specialized Epic. The race, a Chicago cross race in freezing temperatures. This was my pit bike back then. After the 4 hour drive back to Naptown, most of the ice chunks had fallen off. I got on the scale at a friends house after the race. 15lbs of that stuff was glued to the frame. Check out the crankset! LOL! I must have been completely insane back then. Driving 4 hours each way to race cross is some of the crappiest conditions on the planet...repeatedely! This particular race I remember well. No one knew who won since we all fled to our cars in fear of frostbite. All the spectators...yes there were actually spectators....we're talking Chicago tough..were situated at the bottom of a long icy hill that was so slick, mid race you had no choice but to slide down on yer beedum. At the bottom was a not-as-yet frozen stream. The crowed booed if you didn't try to ride it. Like I said, Chicago tough.

Race report # 8/9 Damn! The return of the HLN8R

This weekend I had a double on the calendar. The district championships on Saturday and the final Pilarcitos series race on Sunday. Both courses I knew well. Districts were held at the same course responsible for this post. Although the turn-out was comparatively small and the more important race was arguably the following day, no one told the fast guys. The course, already a flat and fast one, was designed to allow for more bigringyness than I care for...it was smokin fast. I tried to hang w/ the freight train for the 1st lap, but cold legs just couldn't hold the pace and I eased off. Got passed by a couple of others but couldn't respond just yet. Finally, about 20 minutes in, my legs came around just as Legolas and Fire Marshall Bill caught me. They are two of the fastest 45+ A's and had started 30 seconds back. Fortuna finally smiled. I was able to hang w/ them for almost two laps before they started attacking one another. Bastards. The good news was, I had reeled in two or three and had another in my sights. Now all I could do was pray they motored past so he couldn't jump the wheel. They did and he couldn't. I smelled blood, but had less than a lap to reel him in. The problem was that on this course there's no hiding. It's wide open and it's easy to mark someone of you've got the legs. I gassed it on the longs stairs and got w/in about 5 seconds. He saw me and surged. I hit it again at the triple and the long straight almost making contact. He dug deep and jumped. I finally caught him on the last set of barriers 100 yrds from the finish. Clean re-mount. Click-Click. I had it. Three cheers and a Tiger for me. I just buried myself and almost puked for something-teenth place! whoohoo.
Now Sunday was the real treat. I didn't race. The HLN8R did. Her 1st race in 5 years. Not only had she not raced, but her total time on the bike this year is hovering around 50 hours. Yep, you read that right. Let's not discount the two kids in that hiatus either. She also decided to debut at one of the harder, more technical coursed around. I don't know if I mentioned it before, but this woman has more athletic talent in her sock than there is in the sum total of my historical DNA. My jealousy of that fact I endure with a glacial calm. For her, going from C to B, back to A is a season. For me, that's a lifetime. Anyway. I truly loved watching her race again. She said she had a good start, hitting it from the back row to pass a bunch on the climb at the start. Then she endo'd big time. I didn't see it, but she said it rang her bell. She mentioned that she just wasn't use to the power of the canti's and heading into the first downhill section, she grabbed a handfull of brake and sailed. It wasn't until we were in the car that it hit me. We both run moto on the cross bikes. She spends nearly all of her bike time on the road. I'm switching it over this weekend. I felt guilty. She thought it was funny. HLN8R, you are my hero.