Hey Gang-
Up here in the Truckee land area vacationing. Off the water today where the Griffociraptor family, my family and the Kay Lynn Hall Repp (long time friend and extreme blog reader) family survived the mass flowage of the Truckee river. I'm sure we navigated massive class IV rapids but really, it was more about not spilling my beer. It's beautiful up here. Even saw a Pegasaurus riding along the road but my shout out went unheard.

My legs are still hurting me from my race this weekend at Leesville. I'm not certain, but that last cramp you felt could have been my season coming to a grinding halt. Talk about a hard man's race. Launched with the 40-44 year old class and felt pretty good. Had the Griffociraptor for company along with a fellow team mate. Funniest moment of the race came on the start line where the chick in blue (aka race official) asked if anyone objected to combining us with the 45-49 year olds. One guy in the older bracket put his foot down, and that's all it took for us to race separate. I didn't care, but the extreme power of that one guy was a head shaker. We were 20 strong/weak depending on your take on things. The pace started out slow but then this Webcor guy went to the front and drilled it across the flats. I couldn't help but think that the guy was the biggest tool on the planet. I've never done this race before, but from what my mates have told me, it's long, hilly, and long. Of course we crossed Highway 20 and Griff drilled it. Mr. Webcor detonated. I'm certain he is still out there at this very moment still time trialing in. Anyway, a select group of players switched spots up front shredding whatever was left of our select little group. There was a Spine guy, two EMC guys, an O Club guy, me and the Griffociraptor. Somewhere up the climb, as I crashed through a pothole, something on my speedometer rattled loose and I started making all sorts of annoying noises. I tried an on bike correction, but that proved silly, what with my fingers banging into the spokes and me rattling across bad roads and all. So I thwacked along making all sorts of racket. I could tell that most in the break were getting annoyed, but not nearly as annoyed as this blogger. And so I thwacked. Nearing the summit of a seemingly endless climb, I glanced back to see the Griffociraptor quietly coming on. Knowing that there was a crapload of race left and knowing that my boy can TT, I figured now was the time to get off and deal with the situation on my front end. So I dismounted and went to work. Griff went by and gave me a shout of encouragement. What I needed was some zip ties. I remounted about 30 seconds later and chased back to Griff. We crested together and started to chase. Up ahead we could see the EMC guy sucking another class and just beyond them, the O Club guy and then another EMC guy. Patiently we reeled in the other class and went to work on catching those in front. As we passed, EMC came with us (which was cool save the fact that he sucked another class). I tried to bridge up to the two up the road, but flailed miserably. When the next set of hills came, I was shot. The best I could do was be pissed when the other class passed with Mr. EMC in it while I went out the back. Griff stayed with me and the two of us traded pulls the rest of the way in. Another rider, again tucked nicely in a different field, passed us with about four miles to go. I was empty with nothing left. I rolled in sixth. Griff came in seventh having cramped going across the last dirt section. But he had plenty left to report the two riders to the ref. Not sure what happened after the results were posted because the only thing worse than waiting for your result at a VeloBob race is standing around waiting to call somebody out for racing less than ethical. What are you going to do? Still a damn fun race and one that I will repeat...because after all...it's a hard man's race.

Tomorrow you will find me doing Hole in the Ground with a high school friend and then on to trout fishing with the kids. Oh, and I will be drinking a lot more beer. But only to dull the pain in the legs from this weekends race. I'll log in later with more of the antics. Stay well and for goodness sake, race your own race.

Johnny GoFast