I was pretty disappointed as I crossed the finish line at the World Championships in Commezzedura, Italy. Not because I had ridden in the absolute definition of a small child, not because of yet another year of randomly (or maybe not so) crappy performance at the biggest annual event we dirt riders have, but because the frickin’ sweep moto guy wouldn’t race me down the last downhill.
I had ridden pathetically slow enough over the course of seven laps to have a variety of humiliations (hilarious). These included riding across the finish line to start my last lap about four minutes before the winner (Christoph Sauser) finished, with the photographers already blocking the course for “The” photo, having both a Chinese guy and Meirhaege pass me shortly after, and, finally, hearing the unmistakable sound of a two-stroke Trials Dirt Bike behind me. This meant I was the last guy on the last lap. Sweet. In the theme of making lemonade that I’ve implemented this last few weeks of being stranded in Europe, I figured I’d talk the guy (who was wearing easily the awesomest moto suit you could ever fathom) into indulging one of my long lost fantasies. The Bicycle versus Moto downhill challenge. I waved buddy guy up alongside me on the last climb, making my plan quite obvious with gestures and Italian/Spanish/English. He was smiling and laughing and seemed amused with the prospect of our little race. I soft pedaled up the rest of the climb, you know, to rest up, gave one last smile and a suggestive nod before pinning it into the woods. I used my clever inside lines, gapped some roots and figured I had a gap. I MUST have. Then I realized that he’d stopped at the top. No race. Sissy moto guy couldn’t take a little challenge… Oh well, I guess Josh or Carl and I will get around to it sometime.
Other than that, the race was pretty horrible, I finished 45th. Not exactly the way I wanted to end spending 1/5 of the year in Europe… But hey, the extra training I’ve done in the last couple weeks with a casual eye toward Beijing might pay off in a couple months… Things still look good for me to make the Olympic team, but nothing is set in stone as I write this. I hear things will be announced next week, as they’re waiting for a new month to start for this one to go on the books… Till then, here’s to a week off the bike and some reintegration into Americanisms…
Thanks for all the support this spring. Couldn’t have done it without y’all…
AC
