FLCC> Tuesday night B's

[Wayne Gottlieb]

I'm so sorry I missed all the fun, but I did find some moonsnails and polychaete worms in the mudflats at Brewster.  Wayne


--- On Wed, 7/16/08, Mark Rishniw <mr89 at cornell.edu> wrote:

> From: Mark Rishniw <mr89 at cornell.edu>
> Subject: FLCC>  Tuesday night B's
> To: FLCC at icycle.org
> Date: Wednesday, July 16, 2008, 10:03 AM
> Matt's description of the sufferfest is hard to match,
> let-alone 
> surpass!  Hard to believe that somebody who raced Fitchburg
> a few 
> weeks ago found this little back-o-nowhere pedal-turner the
> "most 
> intense/prolonged suffering I've endured on a bike this
> season"!  And 
> only 27 miles - barely a warm-up ride...
> 
> So, as the B's heard the close-to-suicidal course
> selection the A's 
> were making, this fatboy was gonna have none of that. 
> Seeing that 
> the pack was considerably thinned by the A-rider departure,
> I knew 
> that there was not going to be much "hiding in the
> pack".
> 
> "Where the heck is Fatterer (oops, I mean
> Fitterer)?" I thought to 
> myself.  Avoiding a spanking, I suspect.
> 
> We opted for the slightly less torturous, but no-less 
> lactate-inducing single lap of Hurd, with an observatory 
> finish.  Now, I must say that a couple of weeks ago, when
> we did this 
> loop, I was the last of the B finishers.  And I noted that
> I had not 
> raced an Observatory Hill Tuesday night for at least 3
> years, always 
> being wise enough to pull off when the climb up Ringwood
> began with a 
> Melnychenko-type of move ("Oh, I just flatted",
> or "Darn, I have to 
> get home to do dishes", or some other timely excuse). 
> So I was not 
> necessarily embracing the idea of back-to-back Observatory
> Hill 
> finishes, although I had put a few miles into my legs in
> the last 2 
> weeks (thanks to Dr Matt Estill's comment that, based
> on my BMI, I 
> was "technically obese", and my cholesterol
> measurements were 
> reminiscent of a bad Spartacus movie ("The
> 300")).
> 
> We headed down midline, keeping the pace high enough to
> single-file 
> the corner onto Irish-settlement-midline.  Occasional
> flyers went 
> nowhere.  Up EHS the group was still together, and this
> time, I was 
> not shelled by the pack.  Over the top, Felix "El
> Gatto" opened up a 
> gap and stayed just ahead of the pack.  Hurd (Hurt) Rd came
> upon us, 
> and Acidfest 08 began in earnest.  Jason VanS had pulled
> hard early 
> and was now paying for it in spades.  I moved up a few
> wheels as the 
> pansy-assed lycra-wearin' latte-drinkin' skinny
> boys pirouetted and 
> pas-de-deuxed up the hill ahead.  Around the right-hand
> bend, I 
> stood, shifted into my 19 and did what I do best - mashed. 
> I closed 
> down the gap, but it cost me and over the top of the hill,
> several 
> riders I had passed caught back up.  Unlike Matt, I
> wasn't wearing a 
> heart rate monitor and didn't have a functioning
> computer, so I was 
> spared seeing heart rate numbers reminiscent of my blood
> pressure 
> measurements...  But the gap to the leading 4-some was
> small, and by 
> the corner onto midline, we were as one.
> 
> We started up EHS again, with El Gatto still putting the
> hurt on a 
> bunch of guys.  Robbie "Big Ring" Seltzer was
> hangin' tough, as was 
> Seltzer Junior (I think we should ban anybody weighing less
> than half 
> my weight from racing with us up hills!!!!).  Randy and
> Blue Man made 
> a move up EHS, Jack covered it and then went
> "pop".  I shifted into 
> my 17 and jumped around him to bridge up to the leading 4-5
> riders, 
> where Shenstoni seemed to be suffering near the back.  A
> small gap 
> opened over the top, but a couple of hard pulls and we had
> them 
> back.  As I got to the front, I attacked, taking a skinny
> Cornell kid 
> with me, but the bunch wasn't havin' none-o-that. 
> We turned onto 
> Ringwood.  I knew this was it for me, so I put in one more
> hard 
> attack towards the first bridge, and then, like a Roman (or
> should 
> that be Ukrainian?) candle, I fizzled out.  The front 7-8
> riders went 
> by, while Robbie and I began the tempo climb to the finish.
> Other 
> riders were popping ahead of us, but we couldn't seem
> to close them 
> down.  Somehow, out of nowhere, came Jack and Charles. 
> Jack took me 
> on the final corner, and held me off to the finish line. 
> David (man 
> in red?) finished just ahead of El Gatto in a tight race
> for 
> first.  Randy was somewhere in the mix as well.  And I
> didn't finish 
> last (yippeee).
> 
> Back in the carpark, Jim Eagen and I were chatting about
> how hard, 
> fun and good these rides are.  Jim was commenting that he
> didn't 
> think there was a shortage of tough racers here, but the
> cameraderie 
> on and off the bike make the Ithaca Tuesday nights
> something special.  I agree.
> 
> Donnie-boy, you're in for some serious hurting next few
> weeks...
> 
> 
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