i thought getting "goosed" was something else

Race Report: Opus #3, May 2, 2006

It did not rain last night, for the first time in ages. I had just been suggesting to Gilby that since you can't ride the velodrome in the rain anyway, perhaps afzalia wood might be good ark-building material. However, we seem to have been granted a reprieve. Hallelujah!

The Birchwood girls all rode over together and arrived during the Cat 5 race, looking quite fearsome now that we all have the new kit. Not that we weren't fearsome before, but we looked a little ragtag. We registered, warmed up, and then I watched the last half of the Cat 4 race. There were two geese also watching the race from the other side of the road, sitting on a patch of grass between the road and a building. Dangerously close to the road, I thought, but I didn't see any viable place to chase them off to, and didn't want to accidentally chase them into the road. I didn't like it though.

The men's Cat 4 race finished without incident, and 16 women lined up for our open race. We got off to a good start, but on the third lap the goddamn geese were suddenly in the road. People started hollering "GOOSE!" and somebody panicked and braked and swerved and my two teammates Maria and Alix both went skidding across the pavement. They are okay but both need new helmets, and Alix could use a new jersey. (And nobody from other teams crashed, what's that about? Unfair. We had the only crash on Saturday too!)

That split up the field pretty good, with a lead group of 6 followed by me and Teammate Allison chasing, and everybody else strung out behind. Nate says the people behind us formed another pack eventually. At some point Bella K got dropped from the front group and Allison and I caught her on the last lap. Bella K latched onto Allison's wheel, and Allison, having been warned that Bella K was a prodigious wheelsucker, tried all sorts of evasive maneuvers but K stuck to her like glue. I didn't know what to do so I decided I would just stick on K's wheel and let Allison take one for the team, and at the end Bella K and I sprinted it out for 6th. She and I were no more than a tire-width apart at the line, a photo finish with no photo, and I don't know who got it. I thought she got it, a couple bystanders thought I got it, and nobody asked the officials (who probably weren't watching anyway since no points were at stake).

And that was it. My "streak" (if 2 is a streak) of being the first cat 4 has ended, but my teammate Cam was in the lead group so she got that honor for the week, and I was either second or third. We regrouped to rehash the race and inspect our fallen comrades' wounds (Maria bounced over the curb and onto the grass, but Alix wound up with huge bloody holes in her shorts and jersey), picked Nate up from Caribou, and then we rode home with lightning flashing all around us. But it only rained for the last five blocks, so the track can keep its boards for now.