Fear and Superstition in Fremont

I was torn between entitling this post The Number of the Beast and its current title. You see, AWfoSho walked back to the car after reg'ing for the final Earlybird Crit carrying the number 666... for those of you old enough to remember heavy metal, you may recall a completely whacked band (Iron Maiden) and their mascot, Eddie... "666, The number of the beast... hell and fire born to be released" so the song goes... perhaps if AWfoSho had unleashed his hell and fire on the pro/1/2/3 field of 75 or so I might have changed my mind about the title...

Instead, Riki gave us a brief pep talk on superstitions and the number of the beast was put to rest. In its place fear reared its ugly head...

For those of you that have never experienced watching your kids gallop through the final five laps of a nearly full crit field you quite possibly haven't experienced fear... there is something about the posibility of picking one's offspring up off the pavement that strikes terror in one's heart.

So, imagine my relief when, with two to go, El Gigante had delivered AWfoSho to fifteenth wheel in the charging group (fewer riders to deck in front of him). My sense of relief increased when the AMD/Discovery team hit the front and strung the pack out. Funny thing about bike racing... the faster it goes, the safer it is... usually. Anyways, that relief gave way to excitement as the group came out of the final corner, still single file, with AWfoSho sitting fifth wheel behind two household names...

Dean LaBerge is a rider that the boys will always gravitate towards. He's has been more than a competing bike racer to them. He has always had something good to say, some word of encouraqgement, a quiet confident demeaner. Not to mention that he is really fast. The other name, Roman Kilun, ex-DBC'er turned Healthnet pro, is another household name, more so because he gives the kiddos no quarter when they bump into eachother at the races, usually at the earlybirds. He has successfully spit both AWfoSho and El Gigante out of breaks, pushed them off wheels, and single-handedly brought back a good break that AWfoSho was in. So when the kids mention Roman it's usually along the lines of "Oh gawd, Roman's here."

...After spinning out for the entire last lap at or around 35 mph thanks to junior gears, AWforSho didn't have enough hell and fire left in his legs to put a kick into Dean and Roman, but he did hang on for the final podium spot. While he was up front, the Garden of Edan cruised in with El Gigante towards the rear, both having done their jobs. Garden banked a few more miles for the spring campaign. El Gigante, proud of his work delivering his teammate to the front, crossed the line full of an even greater pride because at one point in the race he did battle with Roman. It seems Roman wanted the wheel he was sucking... instead of backing down, El Gigante put his bar into the black spandex with the Healthnet logo and successfully defended the wheel... not much in the big scheme of things, but then neither is bike racing. And taking pride in your riding is sometimes all you can take away from a race... sometimes the podium doesn't matter.