Tuesday thankfully Pierre was willing to spend a couple hours of his birthday giving me a massage. My legs were in pretty decent shape. As always my psoases were problematic. And my back definitely needed some work because of the TT bike, but overall my body’s in pretty good shape and the position on the TT bike isn’t crunching up my neck or anything like that. So all good.
Went to ride with friends I seldom ride with yesterday evening because I just needed to spin the legs to clear the last of the massage out of them. Two flats made the ride take longer than planned, so I was later than planned getting over to Arlington to deliver the Ruby to Gen. She’s a very nice woman, I think she’ll be a real asset to the team in Fitchburg. And the Ruby will get used, which is important. I really considered keeping it as an emergency back-up sort of bike but that’s silly. It’s a great bike and deserves to get used.
So today I’m actually supposed to wake the legs up and do some efforts. Not the monster effort originally scheduled, but some stuff to get everything firing right as I won’t be on the bike again until Sunday. I have the TT bike, since it’s first up in competition next week.
I’ve been attending to some Chief Referee stuff this week as well. Events in August and September are already starting to get their flyers together, etc. I also find myself looking at my rule book to clarify some of the questions that came up over the weekend. There was some poor language in the technical guide (not done intentionally I’m sure) that left folks asking about why they couldn’t do the next stage when they had a mechanical that prevented them from completing the first stage. The rule book is clear where the technical guide wasn’t:
1A30. A stage race is an event with a common entry, run on consecutive days, comprising a sequence of road races (i.e. individual road races, time trials, criteriums), in which the overall results are determined by cumulative time or points. There are normally individual and team competitions. Riders must successfully complete each stage in order to be eligible for the next one.
And there you have it. Didn’t complete Stage 1, no Stage 2. Sorry, them’s the rules and them’s the breaks. But that’s not what the technical guide said….it said that you had to compete in and complete each stage to be eligible for the GC.
What made it confusing was the fact that the promoters did allow non-GC riders to race in 2 of the 3 stages. Personally, I think that if you’re going to let someone just race Stage 3 (and potentially affect the outcome of the stage AND the GC), then you should go ahead and let someone who had mechanical issues prevent them from completing Stage 1 go ahead and race Stages 2 & 3 and simply not be included when figuring the GC. What’s the difference? They were figured into the start times in the first place because they committed and ponied up the money for the Stage Race. Another reason not to allow non-GC riders race single stages.
Catching grief from a variety of folks about my racing of late, which has pretty much sucked. But I also know that these last couple of weeks what’s been in my thoughts is not fear but an unwillingness to risk a big ugly crash that might take me out of Nationals. I’ve spent all winter training with Nats as the goal… no local race is worth jeopardizing that in my book.
I haven’t even started to pack for the week in Louisville. But I’m not the type to pack way ahead. And I’ll need to get all my team kit clean tonight anyway. And I won’t start packing the car until I get home tomorrow night...
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