Wednesday, August 31, 2005

Team Time Trial

Thought it was time to put in an entry. 'Bout three weeks ago, two fgbc members, along with two outsiders entered a team time trial event at Birds Hill Park. The ride was billed as a funt, come as you are event, but it was anything but that. Chris and I, along with my brother Tim and our friend Cam entered as a team of single speed riders (because as you know, you only need one). We decided on the glorious moniker of 'single white males' as our team name and preceded to get ready for the race. Suddnely there was call for a bike check - what the hell? So we all lined up with our bikes and proceeded to get them checked out; I passed, Chris passed, Tim passed (we don't know how because he had the ugliest frankenbike there), but Cam did not pass. Seems like you had to be riding a road bike (ladeeda) for this event. The cause of this may have a been the other single speed fixed gear team who was busy laying down rubber prior to the start of the race (one of the neat things about fixed gear bikes is you can lay down the longest skid marks with this type of bike). Any ways, the roadie in charge of the race took exception to guys having fun and made everyone pass a bike check before they could race. Since some of them did not have brakes on their bikes they were deemed unworhty of participating in a fun team trial. Alas, Cam was also caught up in this Mcarthy inquisition because his bike did not have drop handlebars. Lucky for us I had brought another bike along (I borrowed my friends single speed) but it was too big for Cam. So what do you do - like any good single speed biker you canabalize; off came Gord's handlebars and on they went on to Cam's bike. The only problem was we were running out of time, but a little frantic work got us to the line 30 seconds before we had to start our race (okay - the brakes looked like they worked on Cam's bike but they didn't; hey, you when you only have so much time, somethings got to give). Solid team work allowed us to finish 5th out 7 teams and only 20 seconds out of fourth. All in all a good showing.

Other news - the rumors are true, Vic is riding clipless; the man is going hard core.

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