Clayetteville-Roubaix

A little reroute patch OldGreg and I benched and cleaned up Sunday

Another great weekend at my favorite State of the Park. Price of admission: a few hours of trail work. The reward: two perfect spring days to ride the bestest, rockiest, rootiest, hilliest trail ever (between Mimosa Road / Lewisburg Highway and Lover's Lane / Highway 64 individual pricing and dealer financing applies, not valid in all states, see our website for rules and regulations, license number 645). I've yet to digest it all. In fact, it's sitting there like a gaseous nasea bubbly in my gullet as we speak (well as I type and you read). But I regress.

After unpacking the truck and bathing the ticks off of my persona non grata, I was invited upstairs of the stately manner to partake in beer steamed beef and Paris-Roubaix (compassionately dvr'd by the Slumlord himself). This would be my first ever same day viewing of Paris-Roubaix. I'd been outside the realm of the plugged in world since Friday night and had heard nothing about the race. Almost as good as seeing it live. I was stoked. Expectations set insanely high with dreams of an amazing, hard fought Hell of the North. Flanders and PR are my two favorite road races to watch. PR being the absolutely best idea in the road realm ever.

The coverage on VS was choppy, but better than nothing. We got to see most all of the cobble sections and some of the sprint finishes (what was the deal with nearly missing Boonen's finish with that non-audioed Cancellara interview-ish-ness crud going on? Fire the switcher). Boonen looked strong and hungry for the win. All the other "big names" were in the group with him but even early on one could see it was a race of Boonen and Cancellara. I liked seeing Boonen being out front, just riding his race, looking confident and calm over the cobbles. Just another ride in rough. Several attempts to break up the group and several more failed attempts to get anyone else to lend a hand on the front later, he retired to the back of the line of wheel leeches to eat and recover when Cancellara launched an impressive attack, both strategically and physically. Boonen got caught out but made moves to bring him back after his group failed to act and he had to make his way back up to the front. Then the wheel leeches latched back on. No one was offering help for fear now of using too much energy and losing their chance for 2nd but they sure as hell were happy to tag along at someone else's expense. What a crock.

Boonen tried to rally the troops, but no one wanted to help or risk anything. Hell, in a race like PR when you find yourself in the front group you owe it to yourself to give it a go, eh? I'll never be a classics racer or pro for that matter, but if I were there, in the front group I'd rather give it a go and fail than to sit back, stop racing, just to not lose the unrealistic chance for 2nd or 3rd? What's the point? I'd rather know I gave it everything I had for a chance at victory rather than calculate losing would be ok as long as I save energy for a finish I'll most likely not be able to beat the sprinters in. To go down man to man vs soft pedaling wheel leech. Such a huge disappointment in the "big names" of PR. Where was the grit and determination? The drive for the win? They could have easily worked together to bring back Cancellara, but everyone looked to Boonen, then just sat on his wheel. Pa-freakin-thetic.

Seriously, WTF? :

"Cancellara was unbelievable, he was on a different planet, and we realized we had to ride for second directly. So we started racing for second once he was on his own. I mean to get second and fourth is not bad really, if you take Cancellara out of the equation we got first and third.”

That's not what The Mark Lepper would do, now is it?

Big admiration out to Cancellara and Boonen for two fantastic races the past 7 days. Outstanding. Also to Popo and Hincapie for giving it what they could despite not having the legs needed for the day, at least you gave it all you had. To Stuart O'Grady for blowing up most of the group on the cobbles and being a strong teammate for as long as he could. To Pozotto for digging deep and crawling back despite dangling off the back for much of the finale. Way to not give up and fight all the way to the finish. Congrats also to the 74 riders who stuck through it to finish and the 34 who stuck through it but finished outside the time limit (85 riders abandoned). Impressive. To the wheel leeches, meh, go enjoy not walking up stairs or standing for fear of tiring out your legs. Thanks for making one of the most eagerly anticipating races a major snooze fest by not sacking up and actually racing to win. Thanks for playing it safe. We're all winners. Now where's the line for the participant medals again?

OK, enough ranting. Here are a few glimpses from the camera phone of the weekend that remind me that despite PR not being as exciting as I'd hoped it to be, the weekend far exceeded expectations. Moral of the story, it is always better to get out and ride than to sit and watch someone else do it on TV.