Catching Up

So, like I said, I'll try to catch up on all the happenings I outlined-at least until I get bored.
So moving is absolutely, without a doubt in my mind, my least favorite-but on occasion necessary-activity.
I decided this time the best course of action was to get a trailer hitch installed on my Jeep and pull a trailer with what "little" (turned out I have much, much more than I thought) I own home to my parent's house in Tennessee while I sort out my life/riding for the next few months. I called around town and found what I thought was the best deal on getting a class III hitch installed, also known as the only person who told me they could have it installed in time for me to leave. I showed Wednesday up at the prescribed time, waited to be helped, gave the guy my keys and settled in with a magazine, Coke and a television to comfortably wait while my car was prepped. Five minutes later, guy reappears-bad news.
"Man, when you called, I thought you said you had a Wrangler (he actually confirmed Cherokee twice while I was on the phone). I don't have a hitch for you car in stock, but I can get you one by Monday."
I was leaving Friday.
He sent me down the street to another truck accessory store, guy told me he could do it Friday morning. "Fine, I'll go riding while you install it. Sorry, I ride bicycles, not important," I said.
He went through the rest of the rigmarole, worked up my bill, charged me, then said, "Did you say you race road bikes?"
"Yeah, although I guess sometimes I'm racing more than others."
"You might not believe it to look at me, but in another life I was a messenger in St Louis and I used to race some too, back in the early 90s."
We start talking shop for a while, and it turns out, this guy rode with Kevin Livingston when he was a junior (He said Livingston was good, and he knew it and would drop grown men on the climbs like they were riding tricycles).
Friday came, and I showed up early to try and hurry along the process.
"Man, my truck still hasn't come yet with your hitch, but as soon as it does, I'll get started."
"Any idea on when it'll be here?"
"Probably sometime before 10."
Crap.
I'd brought my bike thinking I'd get a nice hour, hour and a half in as an opener for the next day, be back at home by noon with the truck and roll out by 6ish.
"I'll give you a call when it's ready."
11am, I roll back into his shop, tired, feeling crappy after a late night of "last night in town" with Daniel the night before, still not having been called.
"Man, I'm having all kinds of trouble getting your hitch put on right. Your bolts are rusted and I'm just having to work them off the best I can, but I think I'll have it done in the next hour or so."
Double crap.
Now, I was in North Durham, a place that's not exactly a) conducive to riding or b) conducive to feeling particularly safe, at least in comparison to the bubble of Chapel Hill/Carrboro. I thought at least before I left town, I'd ride over to the old Durham Bulls ballpark, which I thought was just a mile or so away next to the hospital. I'd been living in or around Durham for three years, and I always knew where it was, I just never bothered to go over and see the hallowed grounds where Bull Durham was filmed (although I've visited Mitch's Tavern, which is featured in the movie, several times). The problem with my plan was, when I got to the park, I found it wasn't there. What I'd thought was the old playing grounds was actually the county football stadium.
Now, I can't exactly explain why, but the mere fact that for 3 years-despite never making an attempt to visit it-I thought I knew where the park sat, only to find I was totally wrong, was incredibly unsettling. My whole schema of Durham was wrong-and not just in a "I thought that street intersected here, not there" sort of way. I'd lost a whole ballpark, and at the same time lost one of my last chances to readily visit the place where Nuke had taken breath through his eyelids, and Crash had hit his 246th minor league home run.
My day was not going as planned.
I rode back to car shop, still reeling from my revelation, only to find my Jeep still wasn't ready. I took a nap on the store's front stoop, or more accurately, laying in their parking lot with my head resting against the front wall of their building. This was as dodgy, and probably ill-advised, move as the constant stream of customers from the cash checking/pawn shop across the street didn't appear to be the type who were accustomed to seeing a full-grown man in lycra sleeping in front of his bicycle, in front of a shop in the middle of Durham.
Didn't seem that weird at the time.
Finally, at 12:45, my car was ready.
I spent the rest of the afternoon going between Curtis' house, where some of my crap was, and is, still residing, the bike shop, the Uhaul place and back to my apartment.
I remembered, somewhere during this process, that I hadn't bothered to tell my ex-fiance I was leaving.
Better call her.
After she initially freaked out, we decided to grab dinner at 7 that night before I left.
Come 7, I'd moved out the big stuff.
Come 8, I was done with dinner.
Come Midnight, I was still packing.
Come 1am, I was finally done and left for Boone. I thought I'd drive to Boone, stay with my teammate Ross, get up in the morning after a short night sleep and ride with the team the hour to Tn and race Roan Groan.
Wrong.
I drove for an hour, started to drift around the interstate lanes while I was driving-not normally a huge deal, but abrupt corrections with a trailer on the back, became a huge problem. I pulled into a gas station, grabbed my pillow and leaned over my armrest onto the passenger seat to try and sleep...for an hour and a half in 85 degree heat.
You can guess how well that worked.
I woke up at 4, staggered into the gas station and bought: 1)a huge cup of hot coffee 2) a huge can of cold coffee and 3) a Met-Rx Big 100 bar.
Jumped back onto the road and headed off to Boone. I missed my teammates by 20 minutes, so I was going to be driving solo all the way to TN.
Now, let me paint a picture for you. Take your car, put two bikes on the top, double your car's length and put in a hinge, now fill the car behind you with, say, 2000lbs of weight-Oh, and there's no brakes on the second car. That's what I drove through the mountain roads on hairpins, steep descents and rises and through random traffic lights and stop signs. By the time I got to Elizabethton to race, I was exhausted from all the adrenaline coursing through my veins.
In retrospect, not good.
Not much to tell about the racing itself. Felt okay while we were riding slow, got myself dropped on the second to last climb (although this makes it seem like I was closer to the action than I was-the last climb is 13 miles long). Saw a teammate on the side of the road, or more accurately sitting on a rock in a roadside cave under an overhang on the side of the mountain.
Stopped and cautiously said, "Hey, buddy. How you doing over there? Everything okay?"
He was done, had decided he didn't want to climb anymore and he was going to head back down.For some reason, I kept going up, and up, and up until I finished.
In retrospect, from bad to worse.
I spent the rest of the afternoon drinking chocolate milk while sitting in a mountain stream, hoping I could breath some life back into my legs. There was a TT that night. 1.7 miles with a sharp rise in the middle.
Worse to worser. I think I finished 4th to last.
On an interesting note, the drive back was way more fun when I realized you can use a GPS like a rally car navigator if you're good. The Tom Tom (incredibly, by the way) shows the road ahead of you, so I could get a sneak peak of what was around every corner and know if it was a gentle glide into a straight away, or a total, 180 degree hairpin that slammed you into another turn 30 meters later. I think I saved at least a quarter tank of gas just knowing which corners I could roll through-not to mention the wear on my break pads.
The next day was a crit. I rode around warming up for an hour or so, talked some to Matt Decanio, who I'd met the day before waiting to start my TT. Matt and my teammate/good friend Daniel went to App together, and I'd always heard interesting stories. I mention meeting him not to name drop, but because later that encounter led to me doing the Tour of Ohio with his team.
Started the crit, rode around for about 15 minutes, just loosing positions as fast as I could. Didn't feel like I could turn, or accelerate out of corners, or hold a line or ride my bike.
I pulled out after 15 minutes.
The crit was great to watch-fast, aggressive, played out in a tactically interesting manner. Local favorite Brent Bookwalter was led out by a former teammate for the win over his breakaway companions.
I got in my car and drove the rest of the way home, with slightly less confidence in my decision to leave work and race my bike full-time than I had 48 hours earlier.