IN YOUR FACE....

Before I get back to normal "A2B" blogging...a few thoughts from the weekend.

As the buzz of the monster UCI weekend mellows this morning, I can't help but have a bit of a Kumbaya moment. I woke up early this morning battered and bruised from two days of very hard racing and screaming encouragement in Boulder and reflected back on an insane two days and realized how in your face our world of cyclocross is and how big the beast has become. "In your face" is the best way I can describe it. the racing is spot on in your face, always, on the rivet from the start whistle to the finish if you are fortunate enough to get to the finish, the effort, the handling skills, the chasing, the being chased, the fans, the venue, the access to the sports greatest riders locally and nationally, the beer, the characters, the experienced and the inexperienced, the crowd, the announcers, the suffering, the joy, the camaraderie, the scene, all of it and more is just incredibly "in your face". And you realize something when you are out there, people are there to participate and to cheer for one another, and that is it. Adversity, that is all a CX race is, adversity in it's purest form, and people come to help you get through that adversity no matter how talented or not you may be, they cheer for every rider, they come to cheer for every rider, and they do cheer for every rider. While the war rages at the front of every category, the people cheer for everyone, the bruised and battered, the unlucky, the lucky, the fast and the slower rider, they all get the cowbell and the cheers. it's all just right in your face. And the people, well, what can I say, there are all my "regular" bros and brosettes, and then there are great conversations with the likes of others I only get to see on the front range occassionally, Al Marvin, Karl Kiester, Gary Thacker, Bobby Diesel, Dean Haas and all the guys I race against an cheer for, right there in your face.
When I went down in a pile (more later), 90 seconds into day one's race, which was described the next day by one rider as "the most dramatic crash he has seen", I got up bloodied and bruised, fixed my rig, got to the pit to change my flat and continued riding, and the people cheered, and they rang cowbells. It made no difference where the hell I was in that race, people were psyched I was racing, and that everyone else was racing. They came to watch, all of us, I would not quit, I would finish. Day two saw Jake Well"s dreams of a top UCI pro finish against the best crushed at the start line when he blew his chain right off his bike at the start line and then had to run half a mile to the pit to get his other bike to continue racing, and you know what, the people cheered and rang cowbell harder than they ever have for Jdubs, because they came to see him race and overcome adversity, and he did, he did the best he could on that day, and it was awesome, there will be another day Jdubs. The point is that the inensity of all of it is just pure, as pure as honey dew vine water, and we all know what everyone else is going through out there, and it's all just right there in your face...every person that showe up this weekend made the weekend great for every person that showed up this weekend, nice job people who showed up.