TST Is A Pile of Crap And I'm Never Going Back

This one's been held up in the proccess (namely, Norrene's missing laptop) for a few weeks, but I figured since I took 10 minutes out of my life to write it, you should have to take 10 minutes out of yours to read it...

Sending bike racers into a gas station mid road-trip is like letting a group of recovering alcoholics roam around in Liquor King. We can walk through the doors knowing that everything inside does terrible things to the human body – that we should all just use the restroom and leave – but we inevitably walk out with armloads of pop-tarts, hostess cakes, donuts, candy and energy drinks.

Oh the energy drinks. Those terrible 20 oz. cans of amphetamine cocktails with names like Rock Star, (‘party like a rock star!’) Red Bull, (‘red bull gives you WINGS!’) Monster, (‘unleash the monster inside’) Full Throttle, (‘120%’) and others like Kronic (don’t ask). 3 hours of the shakes and nervous energy followed by a massive sugar-induced insulin-crash that sends you searching for the nearest aggressively named can or a nice place to pass out. This is the drink of the athlete’s summer, a vice of otherwise healthy people that takes all winter to detox from. It was only a matter of time before we dove into that evil stuff, but I was hoping to at least make it until the first track night.

But here we are, walking out of an AM/PM in god knows where, central Washington, black spaz-juice in hand.

It’s going to be a long season.

Ever had that feeling that something’s wrong despite no signs to indicate anything other than smooth sailing?

Ever had that voice somewhere in the back of your head telling you that you’re not going to make it through the day?

I thought it was just Rock Star mid-level paranoia until we rolled up to the start of the Tahuya Seabeck Tahuya roadrace 8 minutes after our group had left. So if the rain, the early morning, the drive and the freezing temperatures aren’t enough, try a $25 training ride. After about half an hour of chasing it became apparent that we were making zero ground, and my cassette made it abundantly clear that it was loose and trying to wreck the hub on my carbon wheel, so back to the van I carefully rode.

Unrelated sidenote: There is a club in Seattle that rides in poo-brown uniforms. That’s right. Poo-brown with baby-blue and white stripes. I uderstand they are sponsored by a coffee shop, but whoever is responsible for those kits should be kicked in the shins anytime they are within 10 feet of any kind of design tools. And they should receive a flying head-butt from Scott Allen, I hear those solve practically anything.

Next in line for the Scott Allen flying WWF style head-butt: Team Rubicon. No not the orange ones that are all way cool and ridiculously good-looking, but the new club (also out of Seattle) that calls themselves Team Rubicon. Now come on, I know we’re in different cities and all, but Seattle and Portland are practically the same racing scene, we’re all at the same races and there’s only room for one TR. How about Whatever Velo presented by Rubicon Finance? How about ANYTHING other than Team Rubicon?

Instead of taking our anger out on organizers or competitors, this time we took our anger out on our stomachs: Dairy Queen style. Double western bacon quarter pounder, two corndogs, extra fries, large blizzard and a coke later I was pretty convinced that Scotty wasn't going to make it home without some catastrophic gastrointestinal event, and god knows we've had enough of those in the van lately...
DT