So this weekend was nuts
Yeah. This weekend turned out to be pretty crazy for Apex. It’s so crazy, heck, I think I’ll write a bit about it.
The last week was sunny and in the 40′s here in Seattle. Everyone was romping around on their bikes getting in serious mileage. Meanwhile, I was missing work, sitting at home with a box of tissues in one hand and a keyboard in the other, coughing and blowing my nose for 4 days straight. Then I had the nerve to go out on the Magnolia ride and hack my lungs up as Chris and Pete beat on me. It was a good thing though. The cold’s gone now and I actually did manage to have a good week.
SATURDAY, though. Saturday, January 14th will be one which goes down in the annals of Apex history as one of the wildest ‘training’ days in team history.
Friday night, the rocket ride was cancelled promptly, probably when they looked at the forecast and it said 30 something…raining…snowing..something something. OK so that was out of the question. Not a problem. Our team was going out to do a bit of a learning session for the new guys. Meanwhile, the last cross race of the season (Chiller Cross) was scheduled to go down in Bellingham in the afternoon. Now what do we do? Kurt and I schemed to drive to the cross race, while everyone just went along with the routine and showed up at logboom at 9am.
We showed up in Bellingham a little late due to a couple fender-benders on I-5 where the snow started getting bad. Kurt decided to jump in the deep end and race the ‘A’ race in the afternoon with me. This ended up being a good choice. I placed 2nd and Kurt took 6th out of a field of nine guys. Both of us wiped out on the course, with Kurt taking his first and last wipeout of the season! I went over the bars trying to ride over a dead log and screamed like a little bitch on the way to the ground. The new skinsuits are AWESOME in a million ways, so that was a plus as well. It was a fun course and was totally worth the drive. We celebrated our day with burgers and beer and the obligatory sleepy car ride home.
Here’s the start of the ‘A’ race.
Meanwhile in Seattle, the guys had embarked on a frozen clusterfuck-waiting-to-happen team ride, which ultimately ended up in people being stranded and picked up by random other teammates. It was just too cold. Everyone had to just stop. I was told ‘actual training’ was happening, but it looked to me like they were just trying not to die of exposure.
There were about 49 emails about frozen fingers and people randomly driving around to sweep up wandering Apexers. Thankfully, everyone made it home safely. Now it’s just a matter of figuring out how to deal with the upcoming week of snow and ice. How do we commute now? Mountain bikes?!? When I got home, the hose was frozen solid and cracked in my front yard. I was forced to drag my mud-infused cross bike into my house for the bike equivalent of a sponge bath.
Can you guess which gears didn’t shift that well?
aftermath:
But mud wasn’t the only substance preventing our drivetrains from moving. Erik sent this one over:
Yeah that doesn’t look very fun. @#$@!#% hardcore!