If there was ever any question, the love of my lifey, road, is back. I spent the weekend watching live feeds of Tirreno [did you guys see how adorably sweet Benedetti was, helping Failli tuck his rain cape away?], and cheering on a favorite team.
Plus doodling, spinning inside...and out. In shorts...!
...And now I have the flu. I'll be back in a few days when I've stopped sweating and generally being a disgusting mess.
'Cross season has always signaled transitions. Like the rebound boyfriend [or, better, the really awesome guy friend that will voluntarily be a fake boyfriend post-break-up until you can go 24 hours without unraveling into a weepy mess], 'cross has held my hand every year as road left me. The air gets a little colder, I start pulling on knee warmers on rides, and by September the races I'm watching involve muddy stairs, and much less asphalt.
It's a good change of pace. Like hanging out with your big brother type friends - the ones you know will make sure you get home okay before going home with that girl you played wingman for - after you pulled a bit of a disappearing act over a crush that didn't work out. CX gives you something fun to do when it's freezing cold outside, with people you secretly think are insane, but you're still proud to call your friends. You end up with lots of good stories, inside jokes and killer hangovers. It's the best way to spend a winter. [Picture below taken by Alex...isn't my helmet hair amazing?]
But then there's a lull in February, after CX Worlds [although Cyclocross Tokyo holds me over a little longer]. Valentine's Day rolls around and the big brother figure that is 'cross is out wining and dining a hot date. The lack of romance in your life becomes a little too clear. You start intensely staring at the Competitive Cyclist postcard from three years ago with Cav on it racing in the Giro - even though you're not a Cav fan - because maybe, just maybe, you can will it to be May if you tried hard enough.
I know, I know, there are the Spring Classics, and it would be greedy of me to ignore Paris-Nice. Coming off the high of CX season, though, I've been craving something...more. The excitement of watching all the big names flex their muscles in the same race, Tour-style. The sprints, lead-out trains, and fast-as-fuck climbing that you get to see in stage races. The Italian sun bouncing off colorful jerseys on carbon fiber bikes...
Actually, that's all bullshit. I didn't see Adam Hansen's name on the Paris-Nice start list and immediately lost interest. Yeah, I understand there's value in watching races that don't include the most bangable dude in the pro peloton, but understanding that concept and acting on it are two different things, okay?
But then there was a tweet about Tirreno! And a start list shot full of HGH [that's Hendy, Greipel, and Hansen, in pedal-strike speak]! And just like that, it looked like I was going to make it through March without [too much] pro cycling stage racing withdrawal.
Sure, my entire face is in agony from the trees around Tokyo constantly jizzing pollen into the air, but I am seriously loving spring.
Some favorite links from this cx-filled month, with love, from Tokyo...
- If you didn't get enough of Cyclocross Tokyo, check out some of the rides spotted there by Cyclowired.jp.
- If you're a city bike/fixie fan, High Snobiety has a great photo editorial on Tokyo bikes. [Thanks, LC!]
- I love that this Bottecchia - a 8avio to be exact - with a paint scheme only available in Japan, is limited to the mini sizes of 48 and 44.
- And if you're wishing it's CX season again, the second-to-last episode of Behind the Barriers is up [and I even got a little cameo!].
Sam is even available for video projects this summer, and if you're looking for a pen to hire, I'm pretty good at wielding one. European bike races? Covering the Tour from a team bus? Just want someone who can cite US law, break out random Japanese and some so-so French and pedal at the same time? Get in touch!
Oh, and Lotto-Belisol, I have an amazing marketing idea for you. CALL ME!
Bloggers are generally really weird. It takes one to know one, so trust me on this. The degree of weird varies, but anyone who chooses to spend their free time talking into an anonymous public space is either desperately lonely, has stunted social skills, or is too prideful to let go of the reality that they're never going to get published for real.
Possessing all three of the traits above, however, has never kept me from being embarrassed about it. When people ask me why in the world I'm at a bike race or event I've sometimes been moved to admit that "Iblogaboutbikes," under my breath. It usually makes people uncomfortable enough to be hyper aware of when I'm taking pictures of anything. It's okay. I understand the creepiness of possibly being inadvertently published on a website that is not Facebook. Really, I do. And there are enough weird/not exactly flattering but 100% accurate pictures of me on the Internet that keep me from doing the same to others [well…for now].
Which is a long-winded way of saying that I didn't get much pictures of hang times with Tim et al. this year. None of lunch which was enthusiastically inhaled by Tim, Alex, and me, none of the casual ride around Tokyo we went on [I blame that on Tim grabbing my backpack and shaking me from side to side like a delinquent stray cat to test my handling skills], and only one of dinner and drinks with Arnie and Ai of Red Bull. I did, however, get a can of the F1 flavor Red Bull, which is supposed to taste like blueberries, not gasoline.
The more organized among us, thankfully, filled in the blanks this year. Alex shot one of our lunches – ramen at Soranoiro – with a real glass bottle of Coke. I did grab a shot of some of our wagashi [traditional Japanese confectionaries] eats at the Tsuruya Hachiman café, but nothing really compares to the last picture. Because no TJ visit to Tokyo is complete without some half-drunken photos taken by Arnie of Red Bull [this year of Ai, also of Red Bull, and I making the Japanese sign for “money,” while Tim does air quotes around our heads].
Early the next morning, my voice all raspy and my breath probably definitely still reeking of booze, I met up with Tim and Alex again at Bonsai Bike Shop before their respective flights home. I played semi-competent translator and Tim gifted a signed jersey to Yoshida-san. He had also dug out a package wrapped in brown paper, filled with Skratch Labs contraband. I have the BEST bike friendz, EVAR!
By the end of the day, they were in air. I would spend the next three days trying to recover [unsuccessfully]. Although the visit seemed way too rushed, the weirdly cool thing about this time around was that we were still planning stuff even while Tim and Alex were headed home. The trip felt short – what trip doesn’t when it involves good friends you haven’t seen in more than a month? – but I’m pretty sure that next time we’re in the same 1 km radius of each other, it’s going to be really fucking rad.
Since meeting Chandler and Tim at Cyclocross Tokyo last year, I’ve taken the liberty to clog their inboxes with rants about ‘cross, Tokyo, and bikes, and stalked both of their racing seasons. I sent a lot of emails with exclamation marks. I met up with them at the Gran Prix of Gloucester. They kept telling me that “yeah, yeah we can’t wait to go back to Tokyo,” but a part of me doubted they would make the flight over after Louisville. I mean, isn’t going to sleep for a week with an ice cream IV the natural thing to do after Worlds, not run off to race again, in Tokyo?
But last Friday two Fridays ago, I was sitting in a bar in Ginza with Tim, [Rapha-Focus mechanic]Tom Hopper, and [Rapha-Focus team manager]Jeff Rowe, having a beer at 3pm. We sandwiched coffee at Café de L’Ambre [where Tim had a café oeuf, a meticulously poured-over coffee with a raw egg yolk in it] between the watery beer and a stop at a whisky bar, and thus started the weekend.
24 hours later, I was cheering on Chandler in the Cat 2 race on the same course that the pros would be racing on the next day. Lined up pretty much in the last row, Japandler moved his way steadily up while Tim, JF [a Boston friend of Tim’s, in town for business], and I screamed and yelled. We all tried to shame Chan into at least beating the guy on the Surly Pugsley, until we realized that that guy was beating everyone. Well, until he rolled his tire and had to switch to a regular ‘cross bike [“oh, that guy that was riding everything?” Chan would later say]. Chan came in 4th, and I got to play podium girl for the first [and last] time in my life.
I only really found out how much sand was actually involved in the course after JF’s masters’ race the following day. There was the long stretch of sand that was there last year, but this year an additional beach section was added, presumably to allow for more spectating space. A pavement sprint led right to a wide curve along the beach [a few guys endo-ed as they hit the sand], before the riders raced through the twists in the trees. A small ramp added some excitement between the wooded sections, before a descent back onto the beach, into sand that seemed to swallow front wheels. I had seen Chan ride the high line the day before, but most of the amateur field had chosen to run the sand section. Both Chan and JF would say that it was the hardest race they’d done this year. It looked brutal.
Back at the Sram tent, with the sun coming out, Tim’s primary concern was how much he would be sweating, and Jeremy Powers’ primary concern seemed to be trying to walk without stepping on a herd of Japanese fans. Arnie from Red Bull came to hang out, as did Sam from the infamous Behind The Barriers. The latter would, later that night, get footage of me weaving around the streets of Shibuya after chugging 1.5 beers with him........Yeah.
I actually did a lot of weaving in and out that day. Once the gun went off, JF and I ran around the course, shooting pictures of Tim and Jeremy with our respective iPhones. JF, having raced a few hours earlier, was familiar with the best places to get pictures, and we jumped over Shimano tape and ran through sand to cheer on the guys. Japanese national champion Yu Takenouchi led the race just like he did last year, and flew through the sand like it wasn’t even there. Jeremy and Tim would close the gap between the trees [with Jeremy bunny hopping the barriers every single lap, to waves of cheers by the fans], but Yu would stretch it back out once on the beach. The field was getting lapped; the course more crowded. The elite field did a total of thirteen grueling laps, with Yu holding on until the last lap, when Jeremy cleaned up any hope of a Japanese win. Tim claimed the last spot on the podium, and the race was done.
The sun was slowly setting by the time the guys finished the podium presentation and conducted quick interviews. We were all shivering in varying degrees, I finally met Alex of Sram who also worked the pit with Japandler for Tim, and I found out that Tim has these zip up tights that are like the Lycra equivalent of basketball rip-off pants [par for the course, I guess, when you’re the “Michael Jordan of the cyclocross world”].
Getting shitfaced off less than two beers and wandering aimlessly around Shibuya followed, plus some riding around town and a night with Red Bull. But more on that later.
[Lots more pictures here.]
