siren call

Last night I rode my bike up to Mt. Tabor to watch my Team Slow pals race in the fixie category (except for Klaus who raced a more "normal" bike in Mens' Cat 5). Then we all went and hung out at Tomas' place afterwards. And I realized that I was not ready to walk away entirely from racing.
I would miss the cameraderie of effort, pain and craziness that is Team Slow, the only team that loudly cheers everyone else as much as we cheer each other, the team that bings chalk to Mt. Tabor and draws huge hype messages in the pavement, the team that shows up in shocking safety orange and has more fun than anyone else at the races. How we place is almost irrelevant, and that's the part I'd forgtten about.

So this weekend I'm pulling out the Bridgestone -- the geared mountain bike I'd gotten almost a yeara go in anticipation of having to leave singlespeed racing -- and will begin overhauling it. Goal is to race at least a couple of times in July at the short-track series, in my masters' age group. I expect to finish dead last, and hope to have a grand time, flat pedals and all.