Now I’ve gone and done it. I just pulled the trigger on a flight to Tuscon. My registration check is in the mail. I’m going to SSUSA AZ February 6th. I am doing this on shear force of will (and stupidity). There is no time to do it, no money to do it, and I have not ridden my bike in almost a month.
I think I just let my “Mr. Cool Ice” chest tattoo write a check that my “Mr. Cool Ice” ab-tattoo can’t cash.
I’ll be flying in Friday night, racing on Saturday, hopefully getting a ride in on Sunday AM (I foresee a severely hungover affair), and flying back out at 2PM on Sunday. Like a business trip — if your business is demonstrating to a bunch of tan and year-round-fit-and-fast south-westerners how white and flabby and slow New Englanders get in the winter. I don’ think I’ll need a Power Point presentation to illustrate that phenomenon.
The promoters are billing it as “A great ride with your new best friends.” That is all it will be for me. It’s a 45 mile race. I think I rode 45 miles…in December. So I won’t be competitive (which is kind of relaxing) and it’s not like I’ll be there long enough to make it into a proper training camp or something. I don’t even think I’ll be there long enough to work on some wicked jersey and short tan lines to make the kids back in Boston jealous; or at least make the kids at the pool laugh at the huge white gap between my tan line and my short line (instead of the fact that I only shave my legs to my cycling shorts line. Two words: “fur shorts”).
If SSUSA comes down to some sort of one on one combat I might, I say might have an advantage (if I just learn how to fight). I’m weighing in particularly heavy right now. As I put it in a conversation yesterday: “I weigh fifteen pounds more than ME right now.” It’s true. When I got back from my honeymoon I weighed 178 Lbs! In race season I hover around 160. OK, it was a night weigh-in, and I had spent the two days prior getting in the last of my pre-New Year’s liquid carbo loading in while lying in a hammock, hiding from the sun due to my near E.R. trip worthy sun burn. I stabilized a few days later at around 174. Still way too high but not insane like 178.
My off-season record is 185 Lbs. That was achieved during a period when I was doing a lot of construction demo-work, not riding, and drinking beer every night. Oh, did I mention the watching of three seasons of the Sopranos in two weeks while eating like Tony Soprano (without the constant wheezing nasal exhalations)? That might have had something to do with this “accomplishment.”
My plan for SSUSA is to use my available (fat) assets to vie for the win: get out front at the start, block the entire field with my huge ass, then take my shirt off and blind everyone with my extreme whiteness, causing them to ride off the trail into cacti. That’s really my only hope.
“I’m sorry that I got fat, I will slim down.” - Wesley Willis
I haven’t been 178 pounds since I was 13 yrs old back in 1976,. It’s a good thing for you I wont be attending SSUSA AZ this year. I’d hate to crush any self esteem you might have ever had and ruin cycling for you by leaving you spitting sand.
I would like to show my apraisal to the owner. The article is so crazy.