While I wait for my brain to unfreeze so I can provide a full report (and process the helmet cam footage I shot!), check out my friend Justin Yax’s footage of the men’s 30-39 race.

Snowy cyclocross madness!

Click here to view the embedded video.

Neutral rollout - before the pain sets in.

What a difference a year makes.

2008: I decide to give road racing a shot. My first race goes well – a relatively fast-paced Banana Belt 3. The pack stays together until the field is obliterated up the last climb and I finish comfortably in the middle of the pack. I consider this a success.

Then comes the Piece of Cake road race. Flat, windy, boring. The day of the race brings rain and hail. In an attempt to relax, I come into the race casually and forget to do some major pre-race rituals, including giving my bike the once over. Long and short? I start with the brakes rubbing, explode fantastically, pop off the back, neglect to identify the problem and then ride 17 miles, alone, with my brakes on.

Rad.

I quit road racing.

No, really. I quit. That was my last road race of 2008 and my second one ever.

This off-the-back crap? This buzzard-circling bullshit? Not for me. Even with a pseudo-mechanical for an excuse. No sir. No more pack-riding, no more kvetching ladies, no more aggressive fighting for wheels and good lines.

Famous last words.

Here I am again. 2009 Piece of Cake road race.

I’ve been sick for two weeks but I wake up and pack a race bag anyway.

Didn’t I swear I wouldn’t do this again? Why am I here?

In the sky? Classic Portland spring weather. Rain showers, black clouds, blue skies, blinding sun, more rain showers. Mother nature is all over the map and doesn’t plan to reveal her plans for me until the gun goes off. I pack every piece of cycling clothing that I own, grab a spare set of wheels to throw into the support car, and jump into a carpool with two other women from my field.

Start line. Chatting. Ironclad has a gang. Hammer Velo is out in numbers.

Here’s my plan: hide. Stay out of the wind for as long as possible. Let the teams work. Pick good wheels and follow them. Ride in the front third to be in position to go with a break.

But mostly the plan is not to get popped. If I finish with the group then I have won my day.

In a nutshell, I’m going to try my hardest not to suck.

Neutral roll out through a few turns, easy going. Railroad tracks indicate that neutral is over. A few more corners. Stand up and sprint out of them and look around. A train of riders comes rolling up the right hand side and I recognize a friend at the front of it, dragging a mob behind her.

Maybe she knows something I don’t but I’m going to sit back here in this draft for another 20 or so miles.

Click, thunk, click. Gears getting bigger all around me. “Hey! Hey! Hup!” Women jump up out of saddles, bodies snaking over bikes, shoulders on the move. I can’t tell who’s attacking but everyone is reacting. I jump and go. Thunk, thunk – my chain drops down to smaller cogs.

In a moment we’re strung out in a single line, hanging on for dear life. 27mph then 28. Then 29.

I stop checking the computer and grit my teeth. It’s 4 miles into the race and this can’t go on forever. Either the bandits will get away or we’ll all come back together. One way or another they’ve got to sit up at some point.

…don’t they?

Just when I think they won’t, they do and here we are at cruising speed again. I look around and assess the damage. No one’s gotten away, all legs are nice and warmed up, and we’re turning into a tailwind.

The peloton is a mysterious entity comprised of our collective bodies and energies, but with a mind and trajectory all its own. The peloton rests. The peloton surges. The peloton gets to have its own action verbs.

The peloton owns you.

Road racing is like this.

Tina Brubaker (affectionately referred to as Manbreaker in some circles) once told me, “Swift, you just ride your own ride, ok? You just ride your own ride and don’t worry about anything else.” We were climbing the backside of Springville and I was nearly choking on my own lung as I tried to keep pace with my faster, more experienced Veloforma teammates.

Then one day The Manbreaker took me on a pre-ride of an upcoming race course and as we climbed she said, “Remember what I said about riding your own ride? That’s only in training. In races, you ride everyone else’s ride. Got it?”

You ride the peloton’s ride. If the peloton speeds up, you speed up. If the front of the peloton attacks, you chase so as not to let the attack become a breakaway. And if you happen to be wearing your She-Ra Rockstar undies on a particular day, you are the attacker. And maybe you’re the break. But you’re still riding the peloton’s ride. You’re riding your bike like you stole it, because they’re breathing down your neck.

Today no one gets away and so the peloton is under control. Intact. Solid.

The pace slows. Then rises. Then slows. Then rises. I keep track of the wind and hide on the lee side, using other riders to block the crosswinds that rip across the dead-flat farmland. Defending position is a constant effort. I get hung out to dry a few times and battle my way back to a good wheel.

Lap one passes almost without notice and we head into the final 17 miles snaking around a few turns, accelerating into them and then hacking our way methodically through the headwind. I sit on the front for about 5 miles, riding near my friend Lindsay – a powerhouse and steady wheel. She makes me calm.

We turn into a tailwind section again and an attack goes off on the right-hand side and we chase it back. My legs are cooked and I let the group come around me and latch onto the back.

A look behind: empty space and a follow car.

One minute I’m on the front of the race, the next I’m dead last. None of it matters except for where you are when everyone crosses the white line.

Still – I know better than to tail gun the back of the group. If an attack goes off now I risk getting caught behind a split in the field. Worse yet, if there’s a crash anywhere in the field, it’s sure to slow me down.

I find a line up the gutter and slog back into the middle of the field, latching on to one of my favorite trains – the Hammer Velo local. A few more attacks. A few more trips into the wind. At 30 miles the fireworks start.

4 miles to go. Ironclad brings the heat and the race starts going forward. My legs are killing me and the field is coming around me again. Pedal, pedal, pedal, pedal. I’m on the back of the group again. Goddamit.

This is the important part. This is the part where I need to be near the front. What am I doing back here?

My left calf is seizing. I can feel the cramp vibrating under the skin. Miniature convulsions objecting to increased torque.

A bike length opens up. Two bike lengths. Three.

I’m losing the field! I’m losing the field in the final push! Two miles to go and I’m getting dropped!

The calf continues its fit – contract, expand, contract, expand. Stab stab stab stab. The pace is too fast to reach for an electrolyte pill or even a swig of electrolyte drink. This is it. This shit is going down right now and I’m either in it or I’m not. I did not race this hard for 32 miles to finish off the back. I remember the sensation of getting dropped the year before on this very course.

My mind says, That thing with the calf? That’s not really happening. Just go.

So I put my head down and bury myself until I find the back of the group. Either they’re slowing down, or I’m recovering, because I make my way up to the middle of the pack again just in time for the final left hand turn.

500M to go and the accelerations are in earnest now. Grasping, desperate, and final.

Two Ironclad riders pass me on the left and I jump on the back wheel and ride it until 200M. We’re sprinting, but we may as well be in slow motion. There’s no sound, just big gears and gritted teeth.

I’m hitting 35 miles per hour but I feel like I’m not moving. Big, slow revolutions and muscles full of blood, pressing against skin. The front of the group is up on the right and I take the left lane, separated from the fray. They’re coming back to me.

Every half pedal-stroke gains me one position and I take them, one-by-agonizing-one. 5 riders, then 10, then 15 behind me.

The white line shows up and stops our pedaling and I look to my right to see I’ve been edged out by a few. I’m fourth. Fourth place with my mouth hanging wide open, coasting now – still in slow motion. Hands in the drops, feet at 12 and 6, stopped in outright refusal to push another stroke.

Gasping. Coughing. The return of sound.

I think “I never want to do that again” but thirty seconds later I have already started thinking about the next race. The next week’s training schedule. The next amazing moment of high-speed agony.

The pain is addictive. The speed is beautiful.

My mouth tastes like blood and redemption and my calf is a detonated landmine. This might just be a perfect Sunday afternoon.

Endless, soul-crushing rollers from hell. Photo by Ivar Vong - ivarvong.com

I hate rollers.  I’ve always hated rollers.

I hated them last year during the Covered Bridges 200k and I hate them now, at this moment, on this circuit called Sublime, in this town called Sublimity.

Cruel.  All of it. I can see it come together.

The race organizers smirking while jotting down the name.  The race organizers snickering while deciding on the finishing climb.  The race organizers rubbing their hands together like so many evil vermin, planning a leg-smasher for mid-February.

We showed up.  We all showed up because it was close to home, or maybe because it was new.  Or because we thought it would be good training.  Or because we didn’t know any better.  Or maybe we were goaded.

Whatever the case, we drove and signed papers and handed over money.  Then we pinned numbers on each other and laughed nervously while the rollers sat waiting for us.

They looked small from far away.  That is part of their trick.

And here I am.  Here we are – in Sublimity.  In a church parking lot.  Only it’s not Sunday, it’s Saturday, and our church is Pain.  We’ll confess on Basil Hill.

The race has started to the tune of a neutral rollout. Small field, lots of smiling, trepidation abounds. I pedal slowly on the second row and sit and wait, taking stock.

I’ve got the wheel of a good friend to my left, 390 calories in a bottle, one emergency flask of Hammer Gel in my right pocket, 5 electrolyte caplets dissolved on a tall bottle of water, and two more caplets stowed in my left jersey pocket (break in case of emergency).

Coming out of neutral we hit the first roller.  Sunny Gilbert is on the front of the race looking settled and strong.  Meg Mautner, a Masters rider, to my right.  We hit the first roller and I listen.

Breathing.  Not mine.  I shift and spin faster, sitting comfortably in with the pace being set by Sunny.  MacKenzie Madison comes to the front. Lindsay Fox shows up.  Meg Mautner is now gone.  My friend, Lindsay Kandra, is still up and to the left.  The front of the group is forming.  Dawn Riddle comes forward.

On the next roller, Riddle, Gilbert and Brenda Spinney go off the front with a small gap.  Sailing over a rise, Madison and Fox chat about whether or not to bring back the break. We’re approaching the base of Basil Hill so I tell them as much and advise that we wait to see what happens on this climb and then chase if we need to – there’s a long, 4-mile rolling slight-downhill on the other side and a chase will be easier there.

Climbing.

I am not a climber.  My power to weight ratio won’t drop jaws.  But this is Cat 4 racing and I can hang.

The meaty part of my hands rest on the flats of my bars while my legs spin small gears.  I stand as the grade rises and look around.

Destruction.

The field is shattered and strung out.  Climbing desperately in all variation of disarray.  The road race is over.  Now begins a test of courage.

There are four of us together at the crest: MacKenzie, Kandra, Fox, Swift.  We descend into a sharp right-hand turn and then regroup.  Off the front: Gilbert, Riddle, Spinney.

“Should we go get them?” someone asks.

“Let’s do it.”

And here’s where the miracle starts.  We’re in a cat 4 womens’ race and there is actually something constructive and organized happening.  A chase group is going after a break.  A successful and efficient pace line has been formed.  Three women on the front of the race are coming back slowly.  There’s no rush so we pursue them with a steady cadence, one strong pull after another.

Now we’re seven.

We sit on the back of their train for a few minutes, resting. Then we begin taking our turn in the wind, one by one.  As we leave the roller-coaster express downhill section of the course and head into the climbing I say, “This race is going to be a lot easier if we can all stay together.”

Famous last words.

A draft will not save me up the rollers.  None of those women can get me up those hills any faster than I can spin my legs.  Dawn takes a pull on the front that almost kills me.  I’m not feeling good.

I survive one roller, then another.  Then one more.  I’m taking shorter pulls than the rest of the group and apologizing inwardly.

Finally, I float backwards next to the line, coming off a small uphill pull and then accelerate a few strokes to latch onto the last wheel of the group.  I expect rest and there is none.  I feel like I’m on the front.

I look down into my bicycle and see black cages full of untouched water-bottles.  My computer is telling me we’re 55 minutes into the race.  I’m hungry and thirsty and my legs fucking hurt.  Goddamit.

The wheel in front of me is getting harder and harder to hold.  The group is silent.  Suffering.

Internal dialogue: You are stronger than your stupid legs!  Don’t be a jackass.  You need this group. Don’t get popped.  Don’t get dropped.  Stay on!  It will be harder by yourself.

Spin spin spin spin.  I’m feeling anaerobic.  Half a bike length opens ahead of me.

No no no no.

Two more bike lengths.

No no no no no no no.

Three.  Four.  Six.  Nine.

It happens in slow motion. Bodies up ahead of me getting smaller, standing on their pedals working against the grade.  The sound of gears fade and is replaced by the sound of a car.  Behind me.

I hate that car.  I hate that fucking car.  But I’m red-lined already so I’m going to have to accept the fact that the follow car is going to go around me and eventually it does.

I hate that car.

On the other side of the monster roller there is a little rest where I spin my legs fast fast fast to try to loosen them up.  Heading into the next climb I begin to chase, keeping the car and the group in sight for a few miles.  I am now traveling the same speed as they are and for the next 5 miles I get time gaps of 60 seconds from spectators.

“They’re a minute up the road.”

“They’ve got 60 seconds.  Go!”

This is stupid.  Why I am riding the same speed as they are now?  Why did I let myself get popped?  What the fuck was I thinking?

Linsday Fox is stopped in the middle of the road.  Mechanical.

“You got it?” I ask.

“I think so.”

The group is still 60 seconds up the road when I get to Basil Hill again and I know that they’ll put time into me on the following descent.  I’m screwed.

And alone.  With these legs.  These horrible, stinging, searing, aching legs.

Welcome to Sublimity, baby.

I focus on the fast section and try to ride as smoothly as possible but manage to drop my chain anyway.  Traditional on-bike re-chaining technique fails and I hop off to fix the problem.  As I do, I notice Fox approaching behind me.  I’m on the bike and spinning by the time she arrives and I jump on her wheel.

Unfortunately, my pulls are slowing her down.  I can tell, and she can tell.

“I’ll do what I can.” I say, “But my legs are popped. I don’t’ have much to give.”

She’s a nice girl and thanks me for my efforts but when we get back to the climbing she rides away from me slowly and I say, “Good luck!!”

She’s going fast.  I bet she’ll catch them.  Either way she looks strong and tenacious as she battles her way up the grade – standing on the pedals with gritty determination.

Alone again and facing a lap-and-a-half.

They’re going to catch me.

No, they’re not.  There is no “them”.  There’s no peloton.  No group to catch you.  Keep pedaling.

I make a right hand turn where I can see a mile or so behind me and find nothing.  No cars, no trucks, no cyclists. Ahead?  Nothing.  No one.  Lindsay Fox is gone.

More climbing and the cramping in my legs is so bad that I decide to take a desperate measure – I fish around in my back pocket, pull out an emergency Endurolyte and bite into it.  Nasty, nasty, nasty.  But the effect is immediate and the relief in my legs is noticeable.

Now officially alone, the psychology of suffering comes on in earnest so I settle in for a long time trial and begin telling myself stories.

Someone up there is going to pop. Someone will come backwards and then you’ll have a friend.  Yeah, that’s it.  Someone is coming backward.

You never know what will happen.  Maybe a mechanical?  The closer you are to them, the better shape you’re in.

I’m going to eat a burger after this.  I’m going to have a beer.

You’re just training with a number on, remember?  Remember the point?  You’re supposed to be obliterating yourself – that was the plan.

I’m going to eat a burger after this.  I’m going to have a beer.

That hill is coming up.  Basil Hill.  You’ll have to climb it one more time.  Considering that you’re in your granny gear now on this roller, I’m pretty sure you’re screwed. And what about the finishing hill?  The 20% one?  You’re going to tip over.

Just keep pedaling and shut up.  Everyone else is suffering, too.

I look up and the sky is dark and brooding.

Rain.  I dare you.  I fucking dare you!

Rain!!  What are you, scared?  Give me everything you got!  I dare you.  Do it.

Despite my taunting, the clouds do not comply.

My body is crumpled into a human grimace.  Left groin muscle starting to feel seriously strained. In the final four miles, I begin to pass riders who are going the other way.  Their races are over.  Womens’ Cat 1-3 riders are among them.

I thought they were doing four laps?  How did they finish ahead of me if they never passed me?  This conundrum is enough to distract me for 84 pedals strokes.  Susan Peithman: “GO, SWIFT!”  I drool in acknowledgment.

Another unidentified rider: “Yeah, kill it, Heidi!”  Despite the fact that I’m about 200 watts away from killin’ it, I smile.  It catches me off guard.  The smiling, I mean.  That shape made with my mouth.

I’m almost done so I stand up and push.  Look back – no one as far as the eye can see.  Ahead, a wall that someone decided to pave.  At the top of that?  A finish line, my boyfriend, teammates, friends, OBRA officials.

I stay seated and grind with my front wheel popping up off the ground every few feet when I let my weight shift backward.  Steep.  So steep.

Stupid.  Cruel.  Ridiculous.

When I cross the line I stop immediately, slump over my bars and say the only thing that pops into my head.

“Motherf—er!”

Laughter. (I’ll find out later that every single finisher released a similar statement upon crossing the line. It’s a good thing OBRA was not DQ-ing people for language.)

After 10 or 15 minutes of recovering at the top of the climb, a pod of us begin the 4 mile ride back to the church parking lot.  I am surprised and shocked to find my legs semi-functional.  We cheer to the rest of our field as we pass them making their way in – teammate Erica Loder is the first person we see and the rest roll in behind, separated by amazing distances, each one having ridden in their own little time-trialing hell for more than two-thirds of the race.

Unbelievable.

Later I make good on my half-delirious beer and burger promise while Lindsay, Sal and I tell race stories that don’t need to be exaggerated.

I fall asleep with the unspoken agreement in my mind that I will never ride my bicycle again.

In the morning, I wake up and see 4.5 hours on my schedule and shove my pedalbike off in the direction of Troutdale, directly into the heart of an approaching storm.

Gutting it out in the final four miles. Photo by Ivar Vong - ivarvong.com

Glorious Mud. Photo by pdxcross.com

The tree comes for me.  I see it as I climb the horseshoe hill in a small gear, but I still think the inside line looks better.  Taking the inside line on the first hairpin turn leaves me set up to take the outside line for the second, where the path turns uphill.

This is what the pre-ride is all about.  Assessment, analysis, strategy.  How to ride this section…  whether it is more efficient to run that mud or ride it. (Ride it! Ride it!) You find lines, form opinions, and generate theories.  Then you go back to the tent, clean off your bike, jump on a trainer, and begin to bounce your pre-ride theories off anyone standing nearby who will listen.

At least, that’s how its supposed to happen.

Instead, the tree comes for me.

It’s my fault.  Entirely.  I make the most rookie error one can make.

In the nano-second that it takes for me to make the tight left-hand turn and assess the small descent in front of me, I look at the slender truck, leaning ever-so-slightly over into the course, and think to myself, “If I take this line wrong, I’m going to hit that tree.”

And then, of course, I do.

Golden Rule #1: Look where you want to go.

And, conversely, don’t look directly at shit that you don’t want to hit.  Because you will.  Guaranteed.

I’ve been training specifically for this race for three weeks.  The epic Portland, Oregon Cross Crusade Series ended and all my cyclocrosser friends pulled their pansy cards and hung up their bikes for the year.  I can’t say I blame them – we’ve been racing every weekend since August and the truth is, we’re tired.

But I love this race.  The US Grand Prix series.  A national level event.  A spectacle of pros and sponsors and vendors and decorum.  UCI officials show up with fancy white shirts and slacks.  They have perfected their grumpy “I’m in charge” look and they use it on you.

The elite races start with guns instead of whistles.  The course is marked with tape instead of retro pylons.

This shit’s official. And there’s something to that. Something I like.

It’s a far cry from the mud-wrestling, bubble-machine, manure-covered, dead-rat-on-course, shenanigans of the local scene.

Not that I don’t appreciate little dung with my man-eating gravel pit, it’s just that sometimes it’s nice to get all dressed up and stand up straight and race like a big kid.

Which is why I’m riding my pre-ride lap like I’m on a mission.  No fear.  No hesitation.  No lolly-gaggin’.  It’s 29 degrees and the sun only just showed its useless face 10 minutes ago.  I race in 90 minutes and I am ready to rip legs.

The tree has other ideas.

When I hit it, I am not prepared for the sound of my skull against wood.  I expect to hit my helmet.  But I don’t do anything half-assed.  I don’t fall and hit my helmet like your average schmuck. No – I go straight for the head.  Never-mind that the helmet covers most of the skull.  I find a way to get some good skull-on-wood action.

Just above and behind my left ear, to be exact.  Just under the bottom of the helmet.

Don’t ask me how I did it, because I wouldn’t be able to do it again if I tried.

One moment I’m on the bike and the next moment, I’m on the ground.  My legs are still wrapped around the frame, feet clipped in.  I’m lying on my side, holding my head.

My friend Beth rounds the corner.  Beth is known for a few things – strong like ox on bike, good like angel in heart, dirty like potty in mouth.  She is not known for her emergency preparedness or first-aid analysis.

Even still, she handles my tree fiasco like a champ.

In fact, I may never in my lifetime forget the exchange we had as she came toward me:

“Holy fuck. Was that your head?”

“Yes.”

“Holy fucking shit. That was so fucking loud!”

Her trucker communication is strangely comforting.  Familiar and safe.  Someone is swearing a streak.  Beth is here.  It’s all ok.

I unclip my feet from the pedals and she drags my bike to the side of the course so that I won’t be run over by other pre-riders.

We assess the damages for a few minutes until I determine that I will ride again.

“Are you sure you’re ok?”

“Yes, let’s finish.”

The truth is that I’m not sure if I’m ok, so I’m making shit up.  It’s good for both of us.  I find the drops and force the bike into unnatural lines.  My bearings are off.  I’m lost at cyclocross sea – swinging wide, hitting ruts, and riding like a total jerk. Either I’m scared, or somethings wrong.  Either way, this isn’t good.

Back at the tent I park the bike and realize that I really want to vomit.  And sit down.  Yeah, I want to sit down.  Now.  Right now.

The tent is tilt-a-whirl and I would love to find my boyfriend but become aware that he is off on his own pre-ride.

Wait.  Patience.  He’ll come back.  Not ok right now.  Really need him.  Where is he!? Ground shifting again and with the adrenaline gone, the pain comes in waves.  Along with more nausea.

Beth looks over at me and asks if I’m ok and when I raise my head out of my hands to say, “I’m not sure.” I can already tell from the look on her face that I’m totally screwed.

Sal finally comes back and I am not prepared to give up my race.  I spend the next 30 minutes sitting with my head between my knees, pacing back and forth, and searching endlessly for the medical tent, which I eventually find.

Of course, they tell me to go get it checked out and Sal sets off with a resolve to take me to an E.R.  I don’t need an E.R.  I know it.  My pupils are fine and I remember everything that happened.  It’s just a little pain and nausea, a little miniature concussion maybe.  This type of shit happens all the time.

Miraculously, I convince Sal to let me stay.  I even convince him to race. I sit in front of the propane heater in a daze watching my race go by in front of me.

This is not how the USGP is supposed to go down, but I have a plan.  A 24 hour rally.  A recovery.  Heidi Swift will ride again, goddammit.

It’s the last racing of my season and Sunday promises to be muddy.  I am not going to miss it.

When the rain falls later that night, it’s a good omen.  I lay away listen to the rhythm of the pounding in my head against the backdrop of rain on the skylight.  This is going to happen.  My mother is going to crucify me when she hears about it, but I’m racing in the morning.

Sunday’s pre-ride is better.  It’s the muddiest course of the year.  A soft December morning.  Not too cold, plenty wet, eerily quiet.

I get on the trainer, hit shuffle on my iPhone and score a jackpot with Yppah’s “Again With the Subtitles”.  I put it on never-ending repeat and spin. The legs feel good, the heart feels happy, the head will survive.

The head will survive.

I try to remember this as I’m four minutes in with blood pounding against an already-tender skull.  The throbbing is inconceivable. The suffering is epic.

For a moment, I question my decision to race. I nearly pull over.  What am I doing?  Who do I think I am?  What for?  Another mid-pack finish? This pain?  This unnatural cerebral reverberation?  For what?  Why?

But I know the answer.  So I keep pedaling.

I’m here for the mud.  For the rain and the knock-down-drag-out “I will keep riding until the end”  factor. Because December brings me the weather that I dream of and the skies unleash. Because I’m riding a human-powered bicycle on a muddy motocross course that makes pedaling an end in itself and running a cop-out last resort.

I’m here because in April this will all be gone.  These cowbells, this tape, those waffles. The agonizing early mornings. The endless bike washing and non-stop maintenance. Dark nights unloading the truck from the day’s races.  Muddy, wet shoes stuffed with newspaper on the heater vents.  Gone.  All gone.

I’m racing because it’s the last dance.  The final throw-down.  The big show.

Tree be damned, I’m racing in the name of Cyclocross Love.

I bomb down a steep descent and plow into six inches of liquefied inertia. The gray matter inside of my bruised skull is pounding out the rhythm of misery and it feels like home.

I never want it to end.

It's over! It's all over! photo by pdxcross.com

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(Check back tomorrow for helmet cam footage!)

The Rat: My Power Animal, Photo by pdxcross.com

Off to battle! Photo by Kenji Sugahara

The pumpkins at Kruger’s Farm are rotting.  Slow decay.  Fuzzy green beards where children might have carved geometric faces.  These are Halloween’s rejects.  Piled gourd-corpses littering the fields and lumped next to abandoned red wagons.

It’s colder than a well-digger’s elbow and the cornfields are blanketed in low fog.  Beyond the fog is a bright winter sun that will come slashing through later in the day.

It’s crisp.  Late fall.  Everywhere are the signs of an encroaching winter.

This is my favorite part of the cyclocross season.  The main racing series is over so the short-timers have all stayed home, leaving field sizes that are actually enjoyable.  Breathing room. Normalcy that almost borders on calm.

Kruger’s Farm is straight out of cliché hotel oil-painting.  Fields, farm roads, out-buildings, bon-fires, happy children laughing, dogs on leashes smiling, and families buying apples and locally made honey from the market. A bon fire, hot cider.   You get the point.

I’m so caught up in the Rockwellian stupor I nearly forget that I came here to race my bike.  I put a cowbell into my mother’s hand and show her where the carnage will be best: here, where they’ve piled rotten pumpkins in a heap across the course and here, where there’s a little downhill into a barrier in the middle of a swamp-like mudpuddle.

This is her first time at a cyclocross race.  She can’t wipe the grin off her face.

We stand together for a few moments watching the early men’s categories make their way through, over, around, and sometimes straight into, the Pumpkin Corpse Crossing.  A few racers manage to find a good line through the slimy gourds and begin to clear a path for those behind them.

Unlucky  bastards who miss the line are going down left and right.  Cyclocross tires were not designed to tread through squash guts.

Ten minutes before my race I run into my friend Richard.

“Have you seen the course?” he asks.

“Nope. I walked most of it but not that section.”  I point south.

“You missed the best part.” I don’t like the look on his face.

“Fuck.  More cowshit?” I ask, recalling the previous week’s Corral of Crap.

“Worse.”

I give him my best “stop shitting me asshole” look and wait for him to deliver the punchline.

“Dead rat.”

“What!? You’re lying.”

“No I’m not ““ stay far to the left when you make that turn over there and you’ll squish right through the middle of it.  It’s awesome.”

Only in cyclocross would I be receiving advice on how to get the best squish out vermin corpse.

“Thanks for the tip, dude.”   I make a mental note to stay to the right through that section and begin to question my decision to forgo a pre-ride in order to keep my bike clean, but it’s too late now ““ I have a date with the start line and also, apparently, a dead rat.

Out of the gate at the horn and I finally get a good start.  I’m in my pedals from the first stroke and mashing away.  I shoot off the front and lead into the first corner.

“I’m winning!” I think to myself as I laugh at the absurdity inherent in that exclamation. “I’m beating all these suckers!”

I revel in what I know will be short-lived glory.  I have seen the field of women who are sitting on my wheel.

The first rider to come around is in blue, followed by a few others.  I accelerate out of the next turn and try to stay with them as long as I can. Coming around a right-hand turn I take an outside line to pass two riders on my left.  The first hits the loose gravel too hot and lays the bike down hard. Rider number two has nowhere to go and teeters over the front of her bike, coming down over the handlebars.  Pile up.

I punch it and accelerate just in time to put myself out of reach of potential carnage.

The course is an amusement park ride.  Tacky mud, flat power sections, loose turns, three-and-a-half sets of barriers and an off-camber jaunt next to a barn leading into a short run-up.  Lots of time getting on and off the bike. And dead rats. And rotten vegetables.

Sweet.

The only problem is by the time I come into The Rat Zone my heart is beating so fast  I can no longer comprehend who I am, why I’m here, or what in the hell I am supposed to remember about this part of the course.

In my delirium, I take the left line.

There it is!

SQUISH!

It’s a happy mistake.  Richard was right.  It is awesome.

Emboldened by the feel of animal intestine under my tires, I accelerate down the straight-away with visions of my enemy-decapitating Viking ancestors swimming in my head.

Heavy swords swinging.  BLOOD!  DESTRUCTION!  VICTORY!

Mouth open.  Gasping.  A tiny bit of rest through the off-camber section.  Descend descend descend!  The race has become a battle and the pumpkins must die!

I attack them with eyes wide, smashing my Hutchinson Bulldog tire straight through the soft wall of a vulnerable gourd on the outside. I am aware of a cheering crowd and wonder for a second what they are doing on my battlefield. I gut the next pumpkin and press on.

The bike bucks beneath me but I keep it upright, clear the decaying mass, and find a rut to guide me through the muddy section that follows.

My path now leads to The Rat ““ source of power and might. My mother is off on the right-hand side of the course, calling me nicknames from my childhood and abusing the cowbell without mercy.

Up ahead I see my father.  He is massive and bearded, holding a camera with huge, calloused hands. The hands of a woodsman. The hands of a Viking.

His cry is gutteral and barbaric.

My tires are covered in blood.

Die, pumpkins, die!