Sun Breaks, Heavy Rain, strong wind gusts, hail, and snow . . . what do they have in common? What we all experienced today at BB2. A real test. I am still, after showering, cleaning out my ears. My bike is covered in road grime (those of you cleaning, be sure to use soap and water and a soft hand).
There was zero problem finding parking this week. Rolled in, parked and dressed. We saw John Lin in his car recovering from his race. He did not look good. Angela was shivering like mad. I took no notice. Breezy, light showers . . . no worries, I thought to myself. Little did I know what was in store. The 4/5 Masters group was the biggest of the day. We rolled up and out and we maintained the "neutral" vibe for quite a while. As we all got soaked - water in the face, water up the back and water from above - it became obvious that this was a war of attrition. My right index finger froze over by the time we got to the dam. I got this . . . if it stays like this. Cool. Alas, I was only fooling myself.
About 1K into the race Richard hit the first pothole dead square. I was just back and right of him and one of his bottles flew out and damn near ended my day right there. Rich shook his head and cursed for the next 10 minutes. Bad omen. I decided to track Chris. Another finger went numb.
It wasn't long before mother nature decided to throw everything she had at us. Test our resolve. Then came the hail and the winds. As we crossed the dam I was almost blown into the guardrail. I tucked in between some big guys and cruised along. Drinking was a mixture of Endurolyte Fizz and Road Grit. Nasty. Every time we passed over the dam we got a different type of weather. "Why the eff are we doing this?" some racer yelled at me when it was snowing on one pass. "So that we can say we did it." I replied. "That's right," he replied, "Good story on a warm day in July". EXACTLY.
Things progressed well. I settled into that sort of soaked, cold, reptillian state that comes under such conditions and ground out the miles. Kevin, Hugh and Chris were always right there and we always chased down what went out. HV kept the peloton in tact and we raced along.
Slowly I began to lose feeling in virtually all of my fingers. Chris, who was suffering from the same calamity, said it best at one point, "I CAN'T FREAKING SHIFT!!" For those of you who are into the whole Shimano/Campy/SRAM discussion, let me tell you, as a current rider of SRAM Red shifters that I was desperately wishing for my 7800 DA shifters. Red takes a certain feel and finesse which is beautiful when you can actually feel your fingers. I think my pinky was working and the rest of my numb sausages kept getting stuck in the paddle. When shifting the FD, I had to keep looking down to see if the shift had happened because I couldn't feel anything. Weird. I had to club the right shifter to sort of get what I wanted in the back. The full throw of the DA would've been really nice with frozen hands.
By the time we got to the final 200 m, we were all fubar (except the Bellovaci United guy who tore away with 6 miles to go, without any sort of leggings, shoe covers, etc. and crushed us - what's he on?). I had started to cramp early in lap 4 and was super tenative on every stroke. In the end I didn't listen to what Chris Smith had discovered last week, let them break early, let them crack and then go. I was one who went early, felt my legs fill with lead and had a furious saddled spin "sprint" finish with some guy. I got across the line to Angela's and John cheering me on.
All I could think about was, Get to my car . . . don't hurl . . . get to my car. I had to have someone help me get my key out of my pocket and I have never shivered that much in my life.
Finished. Goal met. My hands are still funky as I type this. Great ass-kicking HV. Can't wait for BB3.
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