Red Dawn

Stage 4 of the Tour of the Unattended began before most people were even thinking of getting out of bed. My alarm went off at 5 am. I was out the door by 5:30. Now sure the Crack O Dawn riders are pretty much already cued up at Cutler and rolling but for me getting up that early is obscene. But I knew if I was going to have a good day it was going to be this one. I knew this stage like the back of my hand. We rode the Tuesday Night Worlds course in Dover. If I was going to get the 3 minutes (Well 10...) that I lost on stage 2 it was going to be today....So I turned to doping.

Weather doping, embrocation doping, tire doping, bottle doping, course doping, basically every type of doping that doesn't include doping or going out and buying an aero road bike with deep section carbon wheels. And the latter did occur to me for a mili-second.

But back to the doping. The weather report for today wasn't ideal. The Wilcox, Matt and I knew early was better so went with wicked early. This also gave us two other advantages. Let's call them traffic doping and course doping. There was zero traffic. Like no cars. People either don't have a work ethic around here or are on bankers hours not sure which. Don't they realize 9-5 means get in your cubicle by 8? Weird. And traffic doping led to course doping. I have no idea why but man I hit ALL the lights just right. I know you don't get penalized for stopping as your time is moving time but you don't gain anything by stopping and restarting. Well you gain some cx holeshot power but that is it. But man it was something else. The only other time I have made the light at South and Dedham ave was back on the original Ronde. And it was a good omen then. It was a great omen today. I made it in both directions.

But let's get to the real meat of my doping today exhibits A, B, & C in my defense...

Tire Doping: Switching to Conti 4000s for the hillclimb made zero impact. I am not a climber that much is obvious after yesterday. But what may be emerging is I may have the ability to go kind of fast on a wide open rolling power course. Fast tires help here. Damn those Contis where the tire equivalent of a nitrous injection system. They also were tough. I was flying and rolled right over a shattered pile of glass. I think it was a Heineken. Who even drinks Heineken anymore. I let out a fairly loud F' me... as I thought I was done. But I didn't flat. The glass didn't even get stuck in the tire. I think the Germans know a thing or two about tires.

Bottle Doping: I ran out of nuun. I had nothing but some camelback elixir. Screw that I wasn't putting that in my bottle. I wanted some rocket fuel. Behind glass I had a huge can of accelerade. When I bought it the guy at Landry's basically told me its like liquid crack cocaine for cyclists. He wasn't that far off the mark. I filled two bottles with it the night before. I drank every drop. And got faster as the TT unfolded. I may be off nuuns. Its great that you don't get all geeked out on god knows what is in accelerade but do you want to soft pedal or do you want to go fast? Yeah I thought so.

Embrocation Doping: Say what? Its about 80 and humid today. I busted out the Mad Alchemy secret stash. It was basically a kamikaze move to force my sleeping shattered legs to wake up and do what they are supposed to do. Push those cranks harder and faster. The legs won the mental battle on Prospect Hill so I decided to punish them. I massaged that MA in deep. And then the crawling fire ants feeling started to crawl up my legs. I felt like Beavis and Butthead...But I didn't even have to tell my legs to shut up once. They knew I was not messing around today. And every time I looked down and saw them glistening and the sweat balling up and rolling off them I would stand up and pedal harder. And laugh.

The other type of doping I did and probably one of the most important was the soundtrack in my head. Call it Music Doping. I have two girls. We listen to Kiss 108 constantly. On Stage 3 I listened to the old Chip. The old Chip was a typical townie dude who thought Mettalica and Swedish Death Metal is the way to harness your inner stomach of anger and ride with rage. Nope. In the words of Chuck D N.O.P.E. Didn't even remotely work. In fact all it did was give me butterflies and make me nervous. But thank god all weds post-ride I was with my girls and listening to their music. As I rolled out the start house a song popped into my head. Its one of their favorites right now. I dedicate my CRW 28 (26) time of 1:12 to Nicki Minaj and her song Super Bass....man that song just gets me going. I was flying the whole way. Seeing Matt and David who had finished wayyy before me as I came down Greendale gave me even more watts. It was like wolves when they come back together as a pack. It was crazy. So I am a doper. Or just finally figuring out how to do this bike riding thing. Final Stage Friday. I am so stoked. Tonight I am studying that cue sheet all night long. And I am busting out the Hup blues for this one. Belgian Blue really does make you faster.