Spring Classic

The first Sunday of September is the Spring Classic mountainbike race. Officially it is spring but Sunday felt more like midsummer it was so hot. The race is *only* 40km so Jason felt that it needed a bit more distance so we rode from his place to the race, did the race and then rode back. A more respectable 60km round trip. We arrived at the race uncharacteristically early so we were quite close to the front of the field on the start line or so we thought. I was racing in the blue category which is basically for 'ou toppies but nobody comes right out and says it like that so i was meant to start in the group behind Jason but I sneaked into the same group as Jason. Standing in the middle of the bunch about 30 seconds before the start trying to be as inconspicuous as possible, everyone is quiet and I hear Pfhtttttttt followed by relieved laughter as everyone around me realised that it isn't their tyre going flat - it's mine. Damn 'n blast. Can you believe the timing.

Too late to change so I rode on it for a couple of km's before it really was too flat to ride on. Stopped and pumped it up but not as hard as I would have liked and I spent the rest of the race expecting the tyre to roll off the rim around every corner. Jason kindly waited for me to pump up the tyre but then promptly left me behind but as fate would have it, finished in a time of 02:32, well behind mine of 02:08. Mine is about right according to my average speed but Jasons is definitely wrong since he finished a good five minutes ahead of me.

Came very close to a spectacular fall going down a technical section. I started out on the right line but something and here I'm going to blame the tyre, put me onto the wrong line and turned the last metre into a near vertical drop. I felt the suspension bottom out not to mention the tyres right up to the rim and I wheelied along on my front wheel for a metre or so before the back of the bike came down. Loads of cheers emanating from the gallery gathered to watch the spills.

Felt much better on the second lap when I just went at my own pace and marvelled at the women coming cruising past me as if i was stationery. When we got back to Jasons place, cathy's first question - even before whether I wanted some coffee - was whether we had seen ourselves in a mirror. On reflection, it looked like we had crossed the colour bar - white eyeballs and teeth and brown everywhere else.