Friday, June 05, 2009

Bucked again

Headed up to Buckhill again, this time with Tri Guy.

I got a much better warm up and the severe breathing problems that emerged Tuesday held off last night. Heading up the climb I lead out for awhile and settled in to about 5th place in the loose sandy single track. I struggled a little there and still was not hitting on all cylinders. The next couple laps I would try to chase down the trio of Barry Tungseth, Heath Weisbrod, and Tom Miller. At the start of the forth lap I bridged the gap and across the ridge Heath let me by as he had pedal problems. Right after that I ended up clipping 2 stumps in a row with each pedal, knocking me off the bike and burping the front tire. Back on the bike I chased down the Penn Cycle duo. At the top of the starting hill I came by Barry, and then I was able to put in an effort to get across the "finish line" a half wheel ahead of Tom for fifth. Results here.

Just a note, it has me listed as 6th place over a second down from Tom. The finish has cones that lead up to a painted line. I came across that painted line just ahead of Tom. They don't run timing chips there, so I can only assume they punched in our numbers to the computer as we approached the finish, not at the actual finish. Oh well, I say I got 5th, not going to argue it. I don't know if Tom has a different take on the finish.

I was 2 1/2 minutes faster this week and moved up 6 (or 5 depending on who is counting) spots. Looks like next time I'll have to move up the next 5 spots and knock out Brendan "lay the meat" Moore.

BTW

2 comments:

T Miller said...

Nice Riding Charly!! That was some good ol' fashion bike racing. I always love it when there are a few other racers of similar ability to really force you to push the envelope. You definately got me at the line by a half a wheel or so. The ground rules, however, at the buck races are that once you enter the finish chute the race is over (they don't want us sprinting all the way through the chute because last year the official's table was taken out by a sprint finish). It was stupid and misleading that they put the finish line at the end of the chute...should have been at the beginning. If you want, I can try to have them adjust the result.

I better get back to work before my boss catches me:)

Charly Tri said...

That's cool. Makes sense now. You earned the 5th place, good race. I thought that you let up in the cones, but assumed it was because you thought you had me. Fun race, fun times. I'll probably see you in 2 weeks up there again, only next time we'll have to work together to pull Brendan in :) Saturday next week is a 12 hour so may not be good for me to race Buck.