Haven't posted in a while. Traveling for work will do that to you. As usual, I timed my trip to coincide with an event on the west coast. This time is was the Muddy Buddy to be held on Sunday in San Jose. TCB and I had been planning this for an entire year since I had to pull out at the last minute and left her searching for a new teammate. This year was going to be different. We had the Gary Fisher Cake (a.k.a. "The Cupcake" since it's a size small) she bought especially for last year's Muddy Buddy. We (well, she) ran hills, we rode hills, we designed cool post-race T-shirts. WE WERE GOING TO KICK BUTT!!!
I spent Monday and Tuesday in Seattle. Didn't travel with a bike so resorted to running around Greenlake. Thought about doing THE WALL up Queen Anne but given that I have been focusing on cycling and hadn't actually run in months, I figured Greenlake was a safer idea. Felt like a plodder. Wonder how long it'll take me to get back to my 7:15 min/mile pace...
Flew down to San Jose Tuesday night. The real reason for my trip - my product was going GM on Friday and it's way easier for me to manage my team from the west coast than the east. So while I was incredibly busy with that and hustling between the SJ and SF offices, I was more focused on preparations for the race on Sunday. But Friday came, we hit our deadline with 43 minutes to spare, and popped the cork on some champagne. Couldn't wait to do that Sunday after our race.
Finally, it was Saturday. TCB picked me up that morning and we headed off on our race errands.
- Buy matching outfits to compete in.
- Pick up race number at REI
- Swap out clipless pedals for pedals with toe-clips (have to ride in trail shoes - can't run in cycling shoes)
- Fix rubbing rear brake
- Lube chain
- Eat chicken panini and drink margaritas (Muddy Buddy traditional lunch)
Dinner time rolled around. We carbo loaded on pasta, did a mental checklist of gear to pack that night, discussed strategy (like who would pick up the coffee in the morning) and what time she'd pick me up. She dropped me off at the hotel in SJ and headed home.
I started getting my gear ready (pack the helmet this time!!!!!) and organizing all my crap. About 15-20 minutes later, TCB calls to remind me of one last thing. While chatting with her, I suddenly hear, "SCREEEEEEACH!!!!!!!!!" Then silence, then a string of expletives that even would have made her sister blush. "F*&^%$!" "Oh, F(*&^^%$!!!!!!!!!!" And other stuff I can't even abbreviate here. I didn't hear any crashing noises so I didn't think she hit another car. I couldn't get her to tell me what happened. Just more swearing, starting to cry and my mind goes off in the worst possible direction - she's hurt or she's hit a person or dog. Finally, she calms down and her first type-able words are, "I don't think we're doing the Muddy Buddy."
Turns out that after a long day of driving around with the bike but not actually riding it she forgot it was on rack on top of the car. Plus, I distracted her on the phone. And oh yeah, apparently she's Mario Andretti when pulling into the garage. So yes, she pulled the one thing that every cyclist hopes they never do and yet seem to do at least once in their cycling career - she had the bike on the car rack, driven into the garage and now had it wedged between the car and the underside of the garage door. Uh oh. I was SO relieved to hear that nothing serious had happened, heard her start to laugh and I couldn't stop laughing. Told her to call me back and try to get the bike off the car and give me a damage report.
Ten minutes later she calls back. Can't get it off the car alone, no one else is home, neighbors are out, HELP! I tell her I'd love to be there but I dropped off my rental at Hertz earlier that day and I figured they were closed now so I was hosed. "TAKE A TAXI!" Oh, yeah. Didn't think of that. Be there in 20 minutes. ;-)
As I walked down the driveway, I saw the sport wagon half in the garage, the Cupcake twisted and smashed with the handlebars stuck under the garage door and the Yakima rack bent into a "L". Ouch. (There are no pictures of the incident to protect the reputation of those involved. ;-) With me standing in the car and pushing the garage door up and TCB holding on to Cupcake, we managed to free it and start checking for damage. First obstacle, rear wheel wouldn't spin but wait...hey, it's just the chain that fell off. Ok...fixed that. Checked out the shift levers and while the the "Idiot Indicators" were sheared off in the accident, the levers worked great. Hmmmm....maybe we'll be riding after all. Throw on the front wheel (this was a front fork mount rack) and it's rubbing a bit but hey, no biggie. It's looking like we may be able to ride! We turn our attention to the car - except for a small scratch on the rails, it was absolutely fine. The bike carrier/tray was trashed and the garage door was dented and slightly off the track but appeared easily fixable. I was just about to do my "We're Still Doing The Muddy Buddy" happy dance when TCB grabbed the bike by the stem and the fork moved in an entirely different and unnatural direction. Ewwwwww....not good. Perhaps the headset was trashed, or the fork, or both. Sadness. Didn't think we should risk bombing down trails on a bike that was suspect. Wah!!!!!!
So instead of racing the next day, we did a fantastic trail run, hung out at the pool and brought Cupcake to the shop. They pointed out one more thing we didn't notice. The frame was cracked right where the top tube was welded to the head tube. It was toast. Kaput. Done. Flat-lined. Destined for the heap. Trashed. With much sadness, we rolled it out of the shop and into the sport wagon for it's final ride home.
There's always next year. Or maybe LA in November. :)
BTW, I managed to take home a part of Cupcake. It's the Idiot Indicator from the rear derailleur shift lever that was sheared off. RIP Cupcake. :(
No comments:
Post a Comment