Tattooed by the Asphalt and "There's a New Kid in Town."

Tattoos - some visible and some not.

Cheapest Way to Get a Tattoo
Former eclectic cycling pro and now current TV analyst Bob Roll once recounted in a PezCycling interview his views on tattoos vs. scar tissue:

Now crashing, on the other hand, gives you scar tissue, and scar tissue tells a story no idiotic tribal barbwire tattoos ever will.  And as the stories of your scars are retold, you'll get hungry for sour mash and pork rinds.

Now granted, I'm not entirely sure where the mash and pork rinds reference comes into play, but the rest of scar tissue v. tattoos thing rings true to me.  Personally, the part where you create the scar tissue is not my favorite and I'm sure much like getting a tattoo it's the most painful.  The past few weekends of racing I've had my fill of what Bob Roll would call "stories" with the most recent crash at Land Park being the most absurd, painful and quite honestly as regrettable as getting your ex's name tatted on your neck.

2nd jersey trashed this year - it's only March.

Despite being sick all week I still decided to take part in the Land Park Crit to help the team and specifically give Casey Fallon a lead out.  After conserving energy and sitting in all race we took to the front in the last 7 laps moving Casey into position, out of the wind and always ready to match any surge that came.  It was working to perfection until inside 1 lap to go we were hitting the speed pretty hard when a rider in front of me decided to take a sharp left turn on a completely straight section of road.  Flipping, diving, rolling and eventually sliding on my back and backside was the result of that rider's ill timed misdirection.  If karma means anything, I took the wrong-way rider out completely as well.  I saw him walking away (carrying his bike) and I didn't see him visiting the medic tent while I took up residency there, so I have no problem thinking "oh well."

Rocky and Curt manning the front.

The bike is being looked at as my new Shimano Di2 electronic shifting seems to now be on the fritz and I'm not an electrician.  Other than that all is fine.  Oh, except the fact that I am covered with road rash and burns.  Yes burns.  It appears someones tire came into my right side burning my arm, wrist and most of the back of my left hamstring and upper leg.  The road rash is confined to the left lower leg, upper leg, shoulder, lower middle back and upper back.  Hmm, maybe I should just say "my left hand, knees, feet and head are all okay.  Oh crap, I forgot, the bright helmet may have seen it's last race also.  The good news is, I'll have a week or so to get over my cold while my skin rejuvenates.

Casey getting in position.

Being Wrong Can Be a Good Thing
Look, no one likes being wrong and it can suck when your strong words comes back to bite you.  Then again, there are times when being wrong is a good thing.  Like when you say "I'm positive this blind date will look like she got zapped with the ugly taser (modern reference to the ugly stick)."  When a positive result comes out of a previous statement or prediction the best is to point it out and admit when you made a mistake.  In a recent (and perhaps overly dramatic and broad) blog post "Teamwork is the Key", I wrote the following:

But what I can do, is snake my way around a technical course and sprint pretty fast at the end.  No one else on our team can.

It's that last sentence that is the problem "No one else on our team can."  Too bold and much too definitive for sure.  So when our team lined up in Livermore a week ago, we had as our goal to give Andrew Shimizu the keys to the car and protection for the final sprint.  The race was packed with 97 riders and lots of sketchy riding and in the end Andrew put himself in perfect position and scored a well deserved 4th place finish.  We have a new "pocket rocket" in the form of young Andrew and I look forward to having him sprint from my wheel in the near future.  Andrew followed up last weeks race with a solid 5th in Land Park along with David Derkacs getting a 5th in his first Crit ever.  Solid.

I'm not sure its legal for him to win that.

We did two races in Livermore (Red Kite Criterium) last week and after an hour of rest following Andrew's result, we hopped back in for another 60 minutes of racing.  Same excitement as the first race except this time the pace was faster, which oddly actually correlates to a safer race.  Eric Brickman took a flyer in the last 7 laps and kept the field at bay for about 4 laps of intense chasing with a strong wind.  Impressive.  I think we got an 8th place for the E3 field (racing as a E2/3 combined field) but if you don't podium or win it's really not what we wanted.

Now I'm just looking for a few more teammates to challenge my statement above and get a win.  I'm sure it'll happen soon.