"I am a rational human being, after all, not a neanderthal" - Jon Lin reporting from Cherry Pie

2011 was quite a generous year for me in terms of bike racing. I was in good spirits going into Cherry Pie for sure, and I wanted to spread the joy; so, I picked up our team's favorite junior rider, Ian Mastenbrook, at his house so he could watch and take photos of my splendor!!!

The skies were semi-open and it wasn't unbearably cold. It was slightly windy, which gave me an excuse to rub some MAX WARMTH embrocation on my chest. Actually, do I need any excuse to rub embrocation on my body? Matt Smith and I seem to echo this pretty loudly and give each other the knowing head nod each time the distinct waft of embro is in the air. Maybe someday everyone will understand the pleasure that is embro.

Time to line up! I didn't get a chance to warm up, but I figured the neutral roll out would pretty much be my ghetto warm up.

After the neutral car pulled off, a rider in black ATTACKED immediately. What Would John Lin Do????? Flippin' go with him!!!! We got a pretty good gap on the field and were trading pulls. After about 1 mile, I thought to myself, "What the F' am I doing???" This attack is seriously not going to stick. Another 1/2 mile goes by, and our lead car, kinda pulls to the side and the driver points their arm out the window and motions to a side road (we thought...) My break-away mate takes a sudden left turn on to this side road, and nearly takes me out in the process. Some course volunteers ended up yelling that we were going the wrong way; so, we slowed down and continued on the main road.

Mr. break-away was not done pounding his chest, Neanderthal-like; so, he hammered it back to the fast pace that we set before our directional troubles. As you can guess, the peloton gained a bunch of the separation back. I was super pissed off at this point, and figured that it would be smarter to just wait until the pack ate me up. I am a rational human being, after all, not a neanderthal.

It was pretty smooth sailing once I got back in the pack. There were these two consecutive turns close to half way into the course that I had to sprint back up to speed to catch the pack after everyone slowed for the corners. Other than that, the first lap went okay. The pain experienced for the rest of the first lap was definitely bare-able after my failed breakaway attempt. Immediately after those two right turns on the ending uphill of the lap came a very welcomed downhill. I surveyed the road ahead, and I noticed a pack of 15 or so of riders with about a 1 minute gap. Not good. Not good at all.

Since this was a downhill, I knew I had to find the biggest, tallest, rider to draft down the hill (when is Bryan when you need him?) I found about 3 suitable specimens and sucked their wheels like a good 140 lb'er. They didn't do me too much good when the road got flat; so, I dropped them quick....kinda like how all those girls who I dated last year dropped my sorry ass. Oh....let's not go there.....haha......I traded pulls with some other guys who tagged on to the bigger riders, and we were reeling in the pack of 15 or so. Honestly, this part of the race HURT more than the breakaway. I didn't know whether the race was on the line at this point; so, I buried myself. Better safe than sorry.

I eventually caught back on, and I think that about 3/4th of the riders got back eventually also. There were a couple of breakaways on the second lap, but each one was successfully reeled in. Let's fast forward to the two-right-turn-finish.

I was around mid pack or so for the first right turn onto the hill finish. The pace was fast, but not too crazy. The road kind levels out and descends slightly after this first right turn after the hill; so, I found a bigger rider again to draft off of. The moment of truth came...the final right turn onto the hill finish!! My heart was already beating 1,000,000 beats per minute cause I was so damn nervous. Did my heart have anything left? I ended up passing a decent amount of riders up the hill, as they were dropping like flies. No rider ended up passing me up the hill, but I did feel like passing out after the finish.

I don't know how well I did. I'll let OBRA be the judge of that. I had a successful race, and I hope that everyone else who was out there today had at least some fun!