Fat Tire Fling

By Tracie Nelson
San Luis Obispo, Cali

But not in Merced.

Nope. No Merco for me this year. I’ve filled my central valley quota for a while, thank you very much. Instead, Ryan and I headed up to Fort Ordy-oh-Lordy to fill our poison oak and dust quotas at CCCX. Aaaalllll-right. (Who wants a body massage?)

So we packed up the knobbies and technu and chocolate chip cookies (the three essential ingredients to a pleasant mountain biking experience) and headed up north for a day in the dirt. The CCCX races remind me a little bit of collegiate racing because they’re so low-key and the feild sizes are kinda dinky and everyone is friendly and chatty and really dorky. I like it.

I raced the Sport division again, since it was only my second race, and was suprised to see that this one girl who has been winning every race under the sun was also still racing Sport. She beat me last time and is definately fast enough to be holding her own in the Expert class, but Whatever. I’m new to this; what do I know?

So a quickie blow-by-blow (the not interesting part): Winner Girl sprinted off like a bat out of hell from the line and I sat on her wheel on the pavement. I looked behind me to see if everyone else was sitting on my wheel and they were nowhere to be found. (Game on.) I jumped around her to get on the dirt first; dropped her on the first lap; she caught me on the second lap and rode away; I caught her on the third lap and rode away from her to win the race. (Yay.)

Ryan won her race too. ROADIES UNITE!

Now for the interesting parts:

1. Since I beat a sandbagger, does that make me a sandbagger? One of her friends asked me if I planned to upgrade to expert “next year”. As in, 11 months from now? As fun as it was to have a good hard race (that girl gave me a serious run for my money) and to have won (it’s nice to win something other than a scrabble game from time to time), I don’t really think it’s fair of us to keep beating up on girls who are new to the bike. I’ll race up next time.

2. FOR THE LOVE OF GOD, get out of your chamois when you’re done with your bike! Not that I was timing them, but there were some peeps (who shall remain anonymous) hanging around in their spandex for a good TWO AND A HALF HOURS after their races were over (sitting around in the feed zone in your bike shorts does NOT count as training time!!!) I’d hate to know what’s growing in their shorts.

3. I saw a guy in baggies and shoe covers. I laughed out loud and then told him that I liked his fashion statement. Creativity deserves recognition.

4. I had fun. CCCX is not a FUPA.

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