cumulative impact. Madison, day 2.

(Photo: Bubba) On our fifth race in nine days, we were all the worse for wear. Ben's lower back is so bad that he can barely lift his right leg; the bikes are developing creaks and having problems that we need to get home to fix; we're exhausted. When Jeremy looks at me and says, "you look tired," it takes a while for me to come up with a sufficient response. It's been a long week.

Since Ben wasn't sure he was racing, the usual warmup routine was blown and things that ran smoothly days before just sort of clunked along. It wasn't till Franky came up with the best reasoning that the decision was made - "How will you feel when you see everyone else racing and you're not out there?" So, back to warmups.

A super huge thank you to Franky, though, for being so unbelievably jovial, friendly, and helpful to me. He's headed home to Belgium with JP in tow tomorrow, and I'll miss him in the pits. We'll see him in KC for nationals, though. It's incredibly helpful for me as the new girl to hear his ideas and experiences from European racing. And he's helping Jonathan with the dream of getting something done in the World Cup. Gotta say, I'm a believer.

But for Sunday's race, it seems like everyone went out with lower tire pressure than they needed. Preride doesn't hit the turns as hard as racing, so riders just seem to want to roll lower than they should. Ben was the first one to actually do a bike change to fix it though, and the process was so smooth... the best one of the half dozen I saw yesterday, if I do say so myself. He came by the pit and shouted "tires too low!" I went to work bringing the tires on the B bike from 27 to about 33 and lined up for the change. He came through the finish, we both raised our hands (acknowledgment that he's coming in). I handed up the new, grabbed the old, and he was on his way, right in the group he came from. Flawless. I grinned when a lap later Franky and JP went through the same process - tire pressure issues - but naturally JP rode just 1/2 lap on the B bike. Ben finished his race on the B, since it works just fine and he didn't want to lose any time.

Another guy's mechanic- I won't say who but I will tell you he finished in the points- was doing the same exchange and needed a little help, standing on the wrong side of the pit and just a mess. "Your rider mounts on the drive side?"
"No, we didn't really talk about that..."
"Here. Stand over here, hold from drive side. Line your cranks up too."
See? Not so hard.

It was a great weekend, though. Rollin' with B14 and Greg. Chris from ProMechanics showed up- turns out he took a job with Trek and now lives in Madison!- and it was great finally meeting Molly and seeing the big names race in our area. Good to see Tristan, too... let's all wish him a speedy recovery. Injuries suck. And it was refreshing racing on home turf (sorta) where our friends were around - congrats especially to the Killjoy crew for mad fast racing.

Anywho, two weeks off now. My team is hosting DeKalb - you should come! - but family commitments mean I may be unable to make it. If we can though, maaaaaybe Ben will race DeKalb for fun - we'd like to try something new with nutrition that we wouldn't risk at a UCI but this would be a good chance. Back to spoiling Molly and running and life as a 9-to-5er.