The View from 58-inches High

Kate and I drove to Houston for the Houston Grand Crit today. It wasn’t originally on my schedule but most of the team was doing it and Brant thought it would be good before Tulsa. Its 2.5 hours (min) to Houston so this was going to be an all day thing. I got myself packed up in the AM, made a sandwich, and headed out the door. Kate and I did an ok of getting on the road on time but, looking back, I don’t think we allowed enough time for pinning, changing, and warm-up. Whatever, I wasn’t taking this very seriously anyway.

Start line

There was nowhere to warm up so Kate recommended we head away from the race where there might be some roads with light traffic. We ended playing red-light/green-light for LT intervals. The worst was that we quickly realized we were a little turned around and only had 10-min before we needed to line up! We stopped at a bar and got directions from some very nice Houstonites and made it back just in time and with very little in the way of warm-up.

We lined up with a great contingent of ladies. Lauren S., Mandy H. (+ 4 teammates),  and Sammi. There was a tough crosswind for most of the course and a tricky U-turn that was all about positioning. I started out feeling the lack of warm-up. I knew I just had to be smart for 2-laps and I’d be good and warmed up. On the second lap, I took the U-turn poorly and had to sprint HARD to get back on but after that I started to feel better and moved up. I was never right at the front but I was mentally preparing for trying to go for primes and making sure I was in a good position. All of a sudden my gears felt wrong. I tried shifting a few more times but my gear didn’t seem to get any easier. I looked back and saw my chain near the bottom of my cassette. At this point, I put my hand up and hoped I would qualify for a free lap after a quick tweak. I held my cable up and road to the mechanic who informed me my shifter paddle was snapped and my race was done.

After the race, my attitude quickly transitioned to “fuck it”. Kate and I rode to the Double Tree to meet up with Kim who had to check out of her room. We joked about how Kim was such a scatter-brain after racing and fucked up it was that my first move after DNF’ing was to call my LBS and demand the manager.

Hey, is Robbie there?

…
Yeah, my bike’s broken.
…
Trust me, just get me Robbie!
…
Robbie, I need this fixed now!

We finally headed back just in time to miss all the free food and the end of the P/1/2 race #fail. We got to the car and found ourselves just as scatter-brained as Kim. Kate couldn’t find her keys. I didn’t even put my bike on the rack. It took us 30-min to get our shit together to roll out of there.

As I was finally making the drive back to my place from Kate’s 12-hours after leaving my house, I thought about how unique my life is. That these moments are so difficult to share with others and that I hoped that these memories would stay with me.