The Best of Times, The Worst of Times

I think I might have stolen that phrase from someone. That’s ok, it wasn’t even a very good book – over rated. Not enough character development on Mr. Carton. Great Expectations was more my style. Anyhow…

The Tour of Eagle, it was the best of times, it was the worst of times. It was the best because my club supported the race, and almost all the people who volunteered showed up, better yet some people who didn’t volunteer showed up. Bonus!

It was the worst of times because my race SUCKED! I mean, it really SUCKED. It’s never good when a cat 3 loser like myself lines up behind someone from the local stud teams – BOB’s. Not good for the Cat 3 loser anyway. I think I got lapped maybe 10 laps in, probably not that many.

Now, I have never claimed to be a criterium rider, or even claimed to like them, but that was ridiculous. I do have 2 comforts though. The first is that a lot of other riders didn’t finish either. I even ran into a friend from another team before the end, we got dropped simultaneously and had a nice chat about it while we waited to get pulled.

One of my teammates even pulled me aside at the end and asked if anyone told me that this was a race, not a social ride? You know, sometimes you gotta take what you can get!

The second comfort is that I woke up the next day with a nasty cold. It must have impeded my performance the night before. That’s my excuse and I am sticking to it…