UCI3 - and that's a wrap!

Dear sweet little baby Jesus in a tuxedo t-shirt all hammered drunk, this past weekend was one big ass long pain train of CX. And I mean that in the best possible way that only a CX'r can understand. Oh, guest blogger Jason here. I got no pictures of Saturday (I did not race) or Sunday (I am lazy and did not take any) so you will have to go to facebook, twitter, cx magazine, velonews, podium insight, or just about any other semi-legit media outlet for your viewing pleasure. Here at LTP you are lucky you get a guest blogger, much less a real blogger with real insight and pictures.

Saturday night after the race my family and I and Heather F. and the JK-47 headed to my folks place to hang with the Van Dessel Factory team. I volunteered my parents to be host housing and they got Jennifer Maxwell, elite female from Van Dessell. Julia Casals and Tony Billota (her teammates) joined us for a cookout, some beers, and story telling. They left with some sweet RRP t-shirts and I left kinda drunk and not really looking forward to suffering through Sunday.

Sunday saw race day 3 start with a frantic phone call to me from the venue. They needed 7 large bags of ice stat. I was all that stood between racers, spectators, and potentially warm beer! So I got the family unit home and down for naps and loaded the truck with gear and headed across town. I got ice unloaded, parked and changed just in time to see the Cat 3 men go off. Michael "Dudikoff" Seiler rode well and got to climb onto the second place stairs for his effort in teh 45+. Steirwalt finished off his weekend by notching 3 consecutive top 10s in the 3 35+ group. He will be on a few podiums as the season goes on. My prediction is Gun Club. The elite masters were up next; Mark Legg and two other dudes rode around by them selves for a while with Legg crossing the line first. Elite women saw KFC go 3 for 3. Strong rides werw put in by all the OVCX regular ladies on Sunday. J-Pow took the men's race ahead of Trebon and a Rapha rider.

Captain Kirk had his dreams of riding two races in the same day dashed by the license po-po so he took out his stomach full of anger (and who knows what else) on us poor cat 4's. Kirk took home second and put a big gap into the overall OVCX standings. Newest Rogue Tim rode up at the pointy end of the race in the open 4's and scored a top 10. The race was hot, dusty, long, and generally miserable for me. I hate the long power climbs that all the roadies love. Good thing about big fields though is you are always racing somebody. A special request from my friend Scott "Sparky" Lyle, if someone could please bring a live chicken, 2 shots of whiskey, and some eye of newt so we can cast the flat tire demons out of his bike, he would greatly appreciate it. 5 races, 3 flats. Not a good way to start a season.

All in all a fabulous weekend. It is best summed up by the scene that greeted me as I crossed the finish line in 17th place on Sunday. Barely able to keep upright, ready to keel over, wanting to curl up in the fetal position and suck my thumb, Lance Brown tossed me a PBR. Yeah, that sounds about right.