Rooter buries his heart at wounded knee

Full sordid story here. Now I know I left Jonny Bold off the hook after his walk of shame at Providence, but you don't see his face up on the wall do you? This is a four way horse race. But I'm still awaiting details of what happened with Chabot at Lancaster? Anyone? This things starting to look like it will go to the wire. The 'rat is sticking with a no-racing strategy, not cool. Willi may end up missing enough last laps to equal a DNS for shit's sake at the rate he's going. Not sure how the race jury will rule on that. So for now it's a two way between the favorite Shah-bow and surprise contender Rooter.

Paper or Plastic?

G-Ride bags it at Providence Day 1!

Correction: I am not sure WTF I was writing about here. Shah-Bow finished both days at PVD. Carry on.

G-Ride can't keep it inflated at G-Ster

Tale of woe here. Rooter got 80-percented both days, but we're letting him slide, ya know, for the effort. Honestly I'd hoped for more than just mechanical failures (are flats even mechanical?).

Rooter SRAM'd, Willi Suckered

The cameraman made it two in a row with big fat DNF, making the Nor'easter the No'eater. Our hero was making a "sweet pass" (aka the Cat 4 tape dive) that went sour, taking down a victim whose only crime was to ride within himself and try to get to the finish first. Of course, the poor minding his own business S.O.B. was not Rooter's only prey, as per usual the Prepared One was riding a borrowed bike, which was rendered unrideable when he panicked and ripped a stuck carbon shifter out of the other guy's back spokes. Oops. To the beer tent with commanding Monster lead.

Not to be outdone, Gewilli, rumored to be some sort of killer mechanic, made it to Suckerbrook Sunday only to suffer from... a dead bike, killed by the Killer. That is what you get for working on your stuff Tall Boy. Not to worry, I heard you can offset the effects of rubbing petroleum products into your skin by eating organic spices, so you'll be fine. All that grease in your blood hasn't hurt your brain any...

Murat claims he was not at the Mayor's Cup this weekend. Hmmmmm. Not sure we can trust him.

Shah-Bow finished not one, but two races at SB, despite starting with an unrideable bulge (huh-huh) in his Zipp-mounted Dugast tire (the BlueBoys tell me you simply can't compete without this stuff, yet only one of us has never had a mechanical, hmmm, wonder who?) and then breaking a chain, which he wisely had someone else repair for him. Chapeau, as they say in mannequin land.

Even yours truly had a brush with the Monster. At SB, with three races on the course at once, (and riding with back-from-his-chain-of-fools-mishap Shah-Bow) I was lapped after getting the 2 to go sign. Of course, since the officials had told us FIVE TIMES on the line that EVERYONE FINISHES ON THE SAME LAP, silly me assumed this meant we were done and were actually finishing on the same lap as the 35+ leader. Yet at the line the official tells me "1 to go for the 45+" and I'm like NOT! I slowed down and argued over my shoulder as I rode away. The next two guys, Tom Stevens and Chris Burke (who G-Ride had pulled me away from, nice teamwork) kept going, and I feared a big DNF as well as two lost placings. But sanity prevailed when all the other 45+ behind me did the same thing that I did, and Kinnen changed her mind. I received my rightful 17th place finish...

So a recap:

Rooter 3
G-Ride 1
Willi 1 (with possible penalty for NOT FUCKING RACING all summer, under jury review)
Murat 1

Rooter Leads!

What's this you say? Rooter finished both races this weekend? Yeah, right, but with the lack of action (can you say Monster Motivation?) and all our heroes managing to drag their sorry carcasses across the finish somehow each week, we needed to extend the concept. The race jury has decided to award Rooter a DNF by proxy for his role in the Sunday FAIL of his girlfriend at GMCX. No, we don't know the entire story, but we don't really care either. He was involved in some sort of bike stealing, messed up race preparation incidents, and the ruling is final. Rooter 2, everybody else 1, except Gewilli who is still technically a zero, which fits anyway. Stay tuned.

'Rat tries to evade the radar

Murat thought we might miss his absence from the the Pittsfield Criterium if he didn't blog about it, but c'mon. The internet knows! Granted, 44 finishers out of 74 starters, this is a tough one, but rules are rules. The 'rat leads! We should probably be watching G-ride and Rooter more closely though. Willi continues to take the safe strategy of simply NOT FUCKING RACING, so perhaps we'll need to think about using the DNF/RACE ratio rather than a straight count. What do you think?

Rooter All Wet at Sterling

So many ways I could go with this. Good thing I'm a gentleman, and Linnea seems like such a nice kid. Well, we've heard a lot of reasons for dnfs, but "rain in my eyes?" If Stevie Wonder and Ray Charles can play the piano, riding a bike around for a few miles should be cake.

I told you I wasn't thinking clearly. I'm blaming the Youngs Double Chocolate Stout.