Night Weasels: written by Justin Lindine

There’s something about racing in the dark that’s just too appealing to pass up.  Even when it defies the common sense being hurled at me by people like my coach, and my wife about how doing a Wednesday night race might not be the best idea with a UCI C1 race on Saturday.  “Yeah, yeah” say I, but where is the fun in all that?  And besides, it’s a well known fact that Colin likes to give out money….and who doesn’t like to get paid to ride around in the dark? 

Anyhow, after brushing off the better advice of those around me I arrived at the venue to the vision of filthy bikes, broken derailleurs, and (a somewhat panic inducing) sighting of Tim Johnson.  Luckily Tim was there for the fun of it, and to pit for Lynn….lucky.  The temps were cold and the course was a mild ecological disaster.  Mud and grass covered everything and one lap was enough to know that I would be in for a long day of bike maintenance tomorrow. 

As is the case at most “fun” races, the start line was a little less tense than usual.  That being said, 40 biker racers don’t line up at 8:30 at night, in the cold, in the mud, with $500 bucks on the line without taking it more seriously then they are playing it off as.  Then a funny thing happened after the whistle blew-I almost won the holeshot.  For a second, you could almost say I did…that is before I got so confused and disoriented at being at the front of the race so soon that I eased up enough to let Jeremy Durrin get in front of me for his mad race to the barriers for the first lap prime.  Little did I know that the only reason I was being blessed with this fast start was a little start-line pile-up, but I’ll take it.  Unfortunately for his sake, Durrin was having a bit of a time both killing it at the front and keeping his bike upright, so I wound up with the first lap prime more-or-less by accident and then pushed it a bit to open up the gap….which turned out to be a good thing because half a lap later the grass ate my rear derailleur and I had to run a little bit to the pit for the b-bike.  No worries-except for the small one about having something like 5 laps to ride with one working bike-no pressure.  Luckily all held together, I was greeted to some immense heckling from the crowd, and I crossed the line a disgustingly muddy, but decidedly happy bike racer.  After some bike preliminary washing-by which I mean bringing my bikes to the stream and still only getting a percentage of the grass out of them-I made my way home, shivering half way there and wondering if all the fun might be at the expense of this weekends racing….tbd.