The largest American-owned brewery in St. Louis is for a beer known as Schlafly's. It's a crisp no nonsense beer that pours easy and goes down great with a french dip at any restaurant in U-City. The brewery in which this beautiful amber liquid is brewed served as the site of the second day of racing at the Gateway Cup.
The course was a lot more technical than the first night. It was a little more than a mile figure 8 loop which formed the shape of a bowl. Each end was up a small hill and the middle, where the 8 came together, was down a pair of fast downhills. The top of one side of the course was a minefield of potholes, ruts and manhole covers which would take their toll on my arms and knock my handlebars down a few mm by the end of the day.
The backside of the course was up a long chip & seal road (slag for those in the South) which was literally strewn with remnants of bottles drank at the night-before's party. Having lived in college towns for the better part of a decade I've become used to broken glass just not in the middle of my crit courses. Beer bottle throwing is an art mastered by a great many fraternity pledges and perfected by their seniors. In fact in colleges in the South Eastern Conference I have heard that competitions are occasionally held. A few houses are rumored have applied to the IOC to make this a competition in the 2012 Olympics. However, I digress.
The race started off weird. A crash in the final corner of the previous race sent one of the riders to the hospital. However, it took a long time for them to clear the road so my field sat at the start line for a while. We sat so long that the officials called upon us to take a neutral lap. I cut the course and returned to the start finish line but many people didn't move. Suddenly the calls from the back of the group, i.e., the former front of the group because they had done a full lap, began in earnest complaining of how this was unfair. The officials responded by making everyone do another neutral lap. Both of these laps were probably the fastest of the whole race...so much for neutral.
I ended up in the middle of the pack. I knew that in order to make this a good race I would have to get to the front quickly. It's another one of those moments in a race were I looked inside and said, aw hell this is gonna hurt for a while. The whistle went and I clipped in. I hit the first two corners like a bald eagle aiming for a salmon in a river. I chopped a dozen people in the first corner and took the sidewalk line on the second corner. By the time we reached the third and fourth corners I was riding in about 15th wheel. I was gassed from the effort but happy that I had found the front.
140+ guys started this race and only about 50 would finish. The field would get ragged going around this figure 8. A lot of accelerations and the heat took its toll on the field. A small break of 3 got up the road and was joined by 2 others shortly. I missed out on this one and am kicking myself for that. I tried to bridge to the group of 2 but when I moved going up the chip & seal backside of the course. I ended up pulling the entire field. So I sat up and waited for another move or for the finish.
With 5 to go I got into an elbowing contest with a douchebag from a St. Louis team. Since we were so far from the finish and only riding in about 15th wheel I let him have it. It wasn't like that particular corner was going to be the end all of the race. He gave me a smile, like he had just won a big pink elephant at a carnival. I thought to myself "you douchebag, what are trying to prove?" The last laugh was all mine because he bit it hard on the final corner of the race and opened up a huge opportunity for me in doing so.
There is an old lesson that I learned back in my early Jed-Adam-Ben-Kansas days: there is always room on the inside. I took the inside corner as we lined up for the field sprint in the last two corners. In the final one my new best friend went down and slid to the outside blocking a whole crowd of people. I went inside and accelerated. It was a long drag race down to the finish line. In the end I took 13th in the field sprint. I was satisfied with that finish after a hard day of racing.
Afterwards I joined the HRRC/Trek guys for a couple beers and a few co-eds at the Tap Room. All-in-all a solid day of racing.
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