Ice Weasels

On Friday night, one of my coworkers yelled "you're crazy" out of his car window at me. I assume this was because I was riding my bike in the dark on icy roads in fairly cold weather. I wonder what he would have thought about my plans for racing on snow the following morning in even colder weather. Last year, Patrick and I cut the cross season short after I fell on black ice at the end of Nov and had my chin stitched back together. A year later, we have put that trauma and medical bills behind us. We were ready for Ice Weasels.

After a rainy, muddy race in Rhode Island last weekend, Patrick started lamenting the end of the cross season. He hadn't done a single race because he pulled a muscle in practice a few months ago. This was too bad because Patrick really likes cross. He decided he was going to do the one remaining race, and signed us up.

We got an e-mail Friday night warning that the course was 90% covered in snow, but 100% ride-able. After inspecting the course on Sat morning, I think that 90% figure was low. There were 3 turns and one straight section that we not under snow. About 1/3 of the course has one ride-able line which made passing pretty difficult. The run-up (which was more of a drag (your bike)-up) consisted of a frozen hill with some shallow icy steps dug into it.

Patrick's race had 100 guys and a lot of ice. One shrewd guy started off his bike, sprinted past about 30 guys at the start, then hopped on his bike. By the time, Patrick got moving at the back- the leader was coming back around on the other side of the field. It didn't take long for guys to be spread out over the entire course. I saw a few hard wipe-outs on icy turns and some other less concerning ones due to getting bogged down in the snow when trying to pass. Patrick fell in a turn, but got right back on his bike and kept going. In a race like this, equipment was important. The winner had a special bike for snow with huge tires. I think that Patrick enjoyed his race - and he certainly enjoyed knocking back a few beers while we waited for my race.

By the time the women's race started, the straight non-snowy section had tuned to mud and the deep snow had been smashed up by the other racers. We had a lot easier time with the conditions. Cathy Rowell and Victoria Gates dressed up for Christmas with reindeer antlers. Cathy had some super cute Christmas socks and Victoria had a light-up Rudolph nose. These were cute - but most hilarious was the vampire rabbit and Julie Lefebvre had on her back during warm-up. She clarified to me that this was an ice weasel. Hope to have some pictures up soon.