ICEMAN -THE THRILL AND DISAPPOINTMENT OF NOT BEING THERE

NEWS FLASH! Photo just received from the start line of today's ICEMAN COMETH! Just look at them GO!

I can only imagine (and remember) what last night must have been like for those of you partaking in the ICEMAN. Snuggle in your hopefully bed-bug-free motel room, it was probably hard to get to sleep. If you weren't worried about bed-bugs, then you were more likely feeling like a kid the night before Christmas. Only instead of waking up to find a load of presents under the tree, you'd find 4,000 lycra-clad mountain-bikers ready and juiced to kick your ass. Reports so far that anybody who is anybody, and many more nobodies than were first reported, are there to share your joy, your pain, and probably a few beers if you're crazy enough to buy a round for the free-loaders that have planted themselves in the Traverse City vicinity for this prestigious and nearly religious biking experience that's turned into a sort of Ramadan on two wheels, or March of Penguins. Yeah, it looks like that, doesn't it?

Meanwhile back at the CB Ride ...

A quiet night, with just a few Bastards on Thursday Night. After a month of hard training, most of you were at home, oiling chains, doing your last 60 second intervals (could you post some video of those, I'd like to see them) carb-loading and car loading, we few souls left behind had a nice spin on empty roads, under scudding November skies. Yeah, we had a good time.

Trying to keep pace with the Stebbins and the unique and now famous Stebbin-FrankenCross bike. It's a monster - but Dave's not.
So fast, he's just a blur. Actually all my photos were blurry on Thursday. I guess my photography just sucks.

Big Kahuna made it - after flying halfway around the world - there he was, on the bike and mashing it. Amazing Big Kahuna, simply amazing! I wouldn't have had the strength to lace up my boots after a flight like that.

But even Superman gets tired after a long flight and a Kriptonite Sandwich. After an hour or so of pretty hard riding Kahuna started to look like this. Yeah, he was tired. But you'd be tired too if you just flew in non-stop from Lamgoostistan in an open cockpit bi-plane. He even had to push the plane all the way from Chicago. He's one tough dude.

Later in the ride we were also joined by Mike K, getting his last licks in before the ICEMAN. To warm up he's riding all the way to Traverse City on his bike. Just to make sure he's loose. All I can tell (well it's too late now, isn't it?) his competitors is to watch out for the sprint off the line.

On Friday, while everybody was packing their race gear and heading up into the great-almost-white-north, I took the cross bike down to the river for a little private 'cross practice of my own.
Crips air, clean chain, nice ground, a good sturdy cross bike, a few snow flakes in the air, it was a great day to thrash around the park.

I was digging it, for sure. I just wish there was a handy 'cross race this weekend. I'd be the only one there, of course, but then I'd have a good shot at the podium, wouldn't I? We'll that's what happens when you don't go to the ICEMAN - you sit around thinking that you wish you were there, and glad you're not. It's a strange deal - but you tell me - how many of you were sitting at the start, waiting for the whistle or the gun, whatever they use to start you, thinking "WHAT THE HELL AM I DOING HERE?"

Yeah we all think that at the start, and about 30 minutes later, don't we? But then after you've vomited, you know why. Or at least you tell yourself you know why ...

Anyway, a sincere good luck to you ICEMAN racers, especiallyall you Crazy Bastards. If you survive the race, just watch out for the after-race festivities - they've laid a few ICEMANers low in the past. And, I hear George "Magic Eyes" Swanzie is in the area, so CAUTION!

When you all get back we'll start searching for Jim Allen again. I guess he was sighted on the other side of this sign, foraging for food and tubes for his bike. Don't worry Jim, we're coming, hang on!