EFTA Battle at Burlingame Race Report 2013

Yo.  Congrats if you’re reading this as you clearly have LOTS of free time.

Us frickin Cape Codders live in paradise, and as a result, we have little reason to ever want to go over yonder bridges.  And when we do venture into the real world, the navigational results can be laughable. 

What's over themthar bridges?  (photo Mike Whalen: whale24 on flickr)

So when Sea Sports teammates Tim “not that one” Johnson and Gabe “the illustrated man” Agaman piled into my wife's milfwagon, we relied on Siri to get us to Burlingame. Bad idea. We ended up going the long way AND getting lost, leaving us little time for a warmup. 

Gabe and I were in the open single speed class and we thought our class would be starting behind the expert classes.  Wrong again -- pros, then us. So he and I ended up where I often did in elementary school - the back of the class. 

Off we went and I called “reverse holeshot!” but someone beat me to it, darnit!  So having blown that distinction, I decided to actually race.  I pushed hard for a bit to try to get near the front and when I passed a couple guys in the race sponsor kits of NBX, one of the guys reminded me that it was a long race (5 laps at 5.5 miles per). Oh yeah, 27.5 frickin miles long! What are we, pro? Not only that, but it's the first race (for me) of the season.

So, ya, I started pacing myself a bit better at that point. And in retrospect, the race distance was probably proper -- 4 laps would have put many of us well under 2 hours.  Better too long than not long enough (TWSS).

I eventually made my way up to 3^rd and the guy in 2^nd seemed to be having some bike issues.  So into 2^nd I went.  I then pushed for a while to see if I could catch 1st (Shawn Mottram), but then decided he must be long gone (and boy was I right as he beat me by 7 – that’s SEVEN American – minutes).

I settled in and started racing backwards - basically looking over my shoulder to try to hold off anyone in my class but noone came...luckily, as I was fading as the race went on.  I did get to ride with teammate/Sea Sports owner Jeff Craddock for a while, which was cool.  And I rode with pro winner Justine Lindine for a while too, gave him some pointers, some training advice, stuff like that.  (Ok, what really happened is he came up behind me so quickly I crapped humble pie into my chamois and fell over in his passing wind wake).

Me and Taylor Clark...winner Shawn Mottram was chasing his kid around somewhere.
(Matt from NBX on left) 

Thanks to NBX and TRIMOM for putting together a great race.  Great organization = less rider stress = more fun for everyone.  This race was a very fun time all around.  

Thanks to my team and LBS Sea Sports for their always awesome support.

And thanks to Kristy for letting me indulge my ego, keeping the kiddies entertained for the day, and letting the team use the milfwagon.

Onto Willowdale! (I didn't set out to do all EFTA races this year, it's just that these first few are closer to me.  I'm looking forward to mixing it up with my fellow Root 66 singlespeed screwballs at some point).

Thanks for reading.