Ky State Championships-Bringing It All Back Home

Well, at least part of it. I've been struggling to get back motivated after a mostly lackluster season. Sometimes it just takes a little something.

Lets face it...I can sit around ruminating that Strummer and Thompson are still dead, and that inspiration has to be lying around here somewhere in this jumble of stuff, and its on me to find it.

I spent Saturday making some changes to the Igleheart and the beloved SingleSpeed(Slow Only). I swapped some saddles around and changed some position things. Raised and Lowered saddles until I found something different that still worked.

A test ride w Zack and Joe Cz @ Eva made me think that I had just a little bit of voodoo left for this race.

I actually had a race plan, although it amounted to giving the Cat 4 35+ race a fair shot, but saving something for the SS race if I wasnt going to pull some magic out of nowhere.

I pre-rode the course and thought the usual-great course, gotta push it here, watch for traffic there and god help me in doing this without gears.

I had a decent first half a lap, but got off the front group and faded further as the race went on. In the 4th lap I actually heckled someone back...a sure sign that I wasnt pushing it hard enough. The SS race was heavy on my mind. Joe Cz and I had schemed away about the other riders and what they had to throw out there.

Quite a line up. You can see Bill Crank chilled out in the back waiting to throw it down upon us, as he surely did.

Extra points for Ben Wilson for-

A having a bike that matched his kit exactly. very PRO

B Getting the hole-shot on the aforementioned 30lb blue beast

JC surely had the sweet setup with the Salsa/Zipps combination and embro'd to the gills. Quite a crew. You can see Czerwonka commenting about the impending pain.

it looked a lot like this....

Lets say 42x18 is the gearing of agony. A 20t cog is going to make its way back there very, very soon. the 18 let me ride most of the way up the short steep hills but then a wall was hit and it was speedy dismount time. I felt every pedal stroke of the first race in my leggs, but I kept a count of who was ahead of me in the race.

At the end it looked like this for the State championships

Bill Crank 1st place SSCX

Joe Czerwonka 2nd place SSCX

Yours Truly 3rd place SSCX

It was cool to stand on the haystack with a good friend and grab the new necklace. Even if I did get extorted by another McShane child for food in the waiting!

The other RRP family members to podium were

Gryzwald 1st place slow medium old men(cat 4 35+)

JHardin 2nd place slow and really old men (cat 4 45+)

Ray(little caesar) 2nd place Cat3

Rachael's family and she had some new jewelry and McShane rides for Bob's Rogue Mill so we count him and his 1st place in Elite Masters.

The Promotion folks did an awesome job, I always say that when I do well. the ice cold Orange Crush was spot on after that hot and hard race. I was proud as a porch pony.

nice work. Now just a few more and time to chillbernate. Im trying to see if that word'll catch on...