Category Archives: Wayne Simon

Yup

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Nervous chatter.  Sugar and caffeine fueled questions. Gear discussions.  ”What pressure should I run?”  ”Where are we going?”

WHIRRRRRRWHIRRRRRRWHIRRRRRWHIRRRRWHIRRR

“LEFT” – “BRANCH!”

“OK.  We’ll start here.  Take this section like this.  Hop off here.  Barriers there.  We’ll start with 2 warmup laps then we’ll go race pace for 40 minutes.  Questions?

Riders ready….GO!”

The pain is almost instantaneous.  Suddenly you’re going faster than you ever thought possible over grass.  The initial push starts to wear off as your heart starts to come up to speed.  Pain as you blood vessels start dilating to cope with the back pressure.  This is where normal – regular people stop.  We just started.

“HAHA – Rob you suck!”

Can’t breathe.  The terrain is blurring.  God I hope I remember my lines.  Hmmm…never been through that turn like that before.  Here come the barriers.  This is going to hurt.

“HUPHUPHUPHUP”

I can get him.  I swear I can get him.  HAHA  He stopped to remount there.  Hup!  Back on – get the pedals….NO….come on…..YES! GOGOGOGOGOGO..  Yes!  Got him.

Lap 1 down….9 more to go.

Cyclocross season is here.  I am a proud sponsor of the series this year as well.  The opener is tomorrow.  I have spent the last couple of weeks in the basement sniffing tubular glue.  I am out of shape but not as bad as last year I don’t think.  Unlike last year though I have no secret goals to do well.  I am going to be driven to compete.  Sad shape and all.  I want to attack every race I can and go as hard as I can.  My goal – along the same lines as J from Tati and Ben Popper – I am on my single point quest this year.  I will earn 1 point in 4A’s.

It’s sad and pathetic but I think this year it’s going to be harder than it would have ever been before.  I saw the fields increase get much more difficult last year and I think this year is on track to do the same.

I will ride the 30+ as well.  Mainly as a chance to get some more time in early in the season.  My goal there?  Make it 1 lap before Wayne Simon passes me from the 50 plus group starting behind us.  Again…this too will be a near impossible goal, but I will do it….maybe.  :)

Those who have listened to my drivel about those who can succeed in this sport know that I believe there are two types of riders who excel:  Type A and B.  A= Aggressive, cocky, looking for a fight – turn the pedals in anger and B=Zen.  I seem to do well when I can turn my pedals in anger.

Get your heckle on and come jeer me.  Tell me I can’t do it.  Tell me I am fat and slow.  Tell me that I am an embarrassment to my company, my team, and may family.

Just have a beer waiting for me when I get done.

Here’s to suffering.  It’s on.  See you tomorrow.

Hacking it up

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JF (left) and Mrs. P (right) look on to watch the Chuck Norris of cycling (Wayne Simon) hand up $2 Fat Tire during the 4B race

JF (left) and Mrs. P (right) look on to watch the Chuck Norris of cycling (Wayne Simon) hand up $2 Fat Tire during the 4B race

Image By Chris

Chuck Norris doing $2 Fat Tire handups. This is cross.

HUGE thanks go out to SCW, Mr. Kelly, and the fine folks at Indian lakes Resort for the 24 hr party someone called a cyclocross race. I can’t even begin to tell you how much fun I had. I have basically been dreading doign this write-up because there is just too much to cover and I know no one will read it all the way through. Actually after switching to the new site I can’t even tell if anyone is still reading this….if you are – leave a comment! :)

This course had everything I like in a cyclocross race. If I had been even remotely on form I would have excelled. Alas as my faithful readers know – I had lost my cross mojo earlier this year. Circus atmosphere for the sake of circus-ness, courses that were little more than a test of your brakes and headsets, epic loses to Bob “the Sponge” Murray (aka “Beverly Bob“), and a split up of one of the coolest crews in cross – those of us who suffered like dogs for top 20 placings in 4b’s all last year, all led to me no longer feeling the cross love.

As I had predicted earlier in the year though as the year has rolled on the “not so faithful” have begun to drop off. A lot of people that dipped their toes into the baptismal waters of cyclocross have decided that burning they felt meant they were too good to indulge in the mayhem. Sinewy faces I recognized from the road have slowly disappeared – replaced by the slightly more rounded faces of the winter peloton. Guys who wouldn’t touch a salad with “full ranch” on it 2 months ago are enjoying an all you can eat cheesecake buffet and handing up bacon, cupcakes, beer and twinkies.

As I mentioned the course was perfect. A ton of wide open hammering. I used every gear I had, and some of them twice. I found a wide sweeper on the backside that let me hammer in the big ring the whole way around and still held perfect traction. It was a big guys paradise….but the skinny guys still won – imagine that. My race was Sooooo uneventful. I hadn’t been ont he bike in literally 2 weeks – outside of a powertest at MJH2′s the previous Saturday. Mrs. P and I had a date night the night before. Needless to sayI was hung over severely in the morning. I was in a hurry so I got nothing to eat or drink before the race. Ugh. I poured in a poor performance but really got geared up by cross again.

After my race I got a chance to watch Debbie Dust (recent PSIMET wheels “rider”) hang a “W” in the women’s race – the first cross victory for PSIMET wheels! Congrats Debbie!

 

Win for Debbie Dust!
Win for Debbie Dust!

Photo: John Wrycza

After attacking the buffet we settled in to watch the 1/2/3 action.  Holy crap – great race.  SRAM Scott has been tearing up everything – this day was no different.  What was exciting was to see Ben Popper and Brian Conant give pursuit.  As a Brian Conant “superfan” (I will for now on consider Conant the Bruce Lee to Simon’s Chuck Norris) I felt it my duty to scream “I LOVE YOU BRIAN CONANT!” every time he went past.  I got a few half grins :) .  What made it better was the fact that this was Brian’s 3rd race of the day (that I saw) and he had won the previous 2.  I believe this was Scott and Ben’s only race of the day.  Best moment of the day was when Ben and brian came charging into the first sand pit side-by-side both catching some high air as they bunny hopped into it.  Classic.

From there it was time to make the funny.  It was a blast.  I take the whole “don’t modify the course” thing to heart so we didn’t…..we just kind of leaned on the tape.  Result - bacon alley.  It was right at the perfect spot where just about everyone was running.  The beer, cupcakes, bacon, twinkies, etc….were all flowing.  It was so loud I had a headache before I had even left the event.  My voice has only now begun to recover.

chicrosscup-bloomingdale09-169

Me screaming at Lenski to get his butt moving….pretty much sums up the day – Photo: Liz Farina Markel

So…..next week.  Cross is coming to a close so I just want to have some fun.  I have already been running and doing a tiny bit of core work.  Maybe I won’t totally suck this week.  One of these days someone will convince me to race the 4b’s……hmmm……

O-O

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Obscure Omiums – For the Win (FTW)

Fall Fling is this weekend and I have not ridden my road bike in a long time. I have been swamped building wheels. The riding I have done has been cross.

I have ridden a few cross rides out of the shop (3 so far) and 3 bandit cross races. BTW – Bandit Cross is the shiz. My props to our man “Rear Derailler”. Great Series.

Today is my dedication day to Wayne Simon. He rocks. He’s like our area’s own little Chuck Norris. All those Chuck Norris lines go through my head when we’re riding/racing together….err….well in the general vicinity of each other – no cat 4 hack is holding Simon’s wheel.

Things like:

“Wayne Simon doesn’t glue tubulars – he just stares at them and they melt to the rim.”

“Wayne Simon doesn’t use public transportation – he pulls public transportation behind his TT bike.”

“Wayne doesn’t ‘warmup’ at the start of a race – he acquires targets.”

“You don’t pass Wayne Simon. He goes behind you because that’s step 1 in Wayne’s book entitled ‘I’m going to crush your soul‘”

“If you’re in front of Wayne Simon…it’s because he’s about to lap you.”

“Wayne Simon IS carbon fiber.”

“Wayne Simon airs up his tires with crushed souls.”

“Embrocation is sweat from Wayne Simon.”

“Wayne Simon wasn’t born – he saw a gap and filled it.”

“Wayne Simon eats chains, sleeps on a work bench, bleeds lube, and poops excellence.”

MJH2 called me one day a few months ago in the middle of a weekday and said, “You know why Wayne Simon is so awesome? I just passed him while he was motorpacing in the middle of the weekday. That’s why he’s awesome. What are you doing right now? Exactly.”

That just about sums it up.