Good day at the races

After my first race experience, I was questioning whether it was worth the trouble to race over here. I thought: I could just go out for a nice 3 hour ride, on some new roads with some new scenery. No driving, no hassles, no crashes.

But there was a race only 25 minutes away, and I was told it would be hilly. I couldn’t resist hilly.

Things were starting to feel more normal. I had moved into my apartment. My clothes and other things, including my race wheels, finally arrived from the US. I was able to pack my race bag as I would at home. It’s interesting how little things like this have affected my general mood.

The course was a good one for me: only 2.5 km but it had a big climb, short flat part, then big descent. I wanted to be more aggressive this week, and went with most all the breakaway attempts. A 3-man break looked promising until one of the guys rode into my back wheel and crashed. I had visions again of someone hassling me.

About halfway through the race I jumped away solo on a prime lap. I took the prime then kept going. I dangled in front of the field at 20-30 seconds for a couple of laps. Then the gap started to grow. Then people around the course started to yell encouragement (which, I must say, was a big motivation).

I stayed away for the win, picking up 7 primes along the way. My take at the end: cash, basket of food (chocolate, cookies), two tires, pair of gloves, towel, model truck, 2 pens, 2 cigarette lighters (I think even the racers smoke here), fluorescent vest. Entry fee was 10 Euros (about $12), including the 5 Euro late fee.

After the race, I was the novelty – the unknown guy from the US who won. I talked to a bunch of people, gave an interview to a reporter in fractured German, had my picture taken.

This was just a couple days after the news of Floyd Landis’s positive drug test from the Tour. Everyone wanted to talk about this. The reporter asked if doping is common with racers in the US. I said I didn’t believe so, while thinking to myself, how unfortunate that this is the big topic of interest.

On Monday, a colleague at work brought in the newspaper. Looking at it, I could see the reporter also asked me if I had doped. I hadn’t realized that at the time, but fortunately I somehow gave the right answer.