April 28, 2003
a slave to physics
NEWTON’S FIRST LAW: a body at rest remains at rest unless acted upon by some external force. a body in motion remains in motion unless acted upon by some external force.
the story of this week’s race (WIM #3, “olympic meltdown”) in port angeles will be a short one….
pam, alexander and i loaded up the family truckster and drove out to port angeles, arriving a mere one hour before my race time. that gave me just enough time to gear up, register, and get a few warm up hills in before the start. pam and i also scoped out a decent spot for her and alexander to see me go by twice during each of 4 laps (about every 10-15 minutes).
while we waited for the start, two events happened which brought back painful memories of my first race this season. a bus in the parking lot, not 15 feet from us, spontaneously blew a coolant hose, spilling gallons of antifreeze onto the ground and sending acrid smoke into the clean olympic air. then, not one minute before the race, a cyclist’s tire spontaneously exploded with a gunshot-like blast, prompting a few racers to believe the starting gun had been fired!
but the race started tamely enough. the real starting gun went off and we started a looonnngggg slow climb up a fire road, which served to spread the racers out nicely before heading into the singletrack. i found my spot cozily in mid-pack as usual.
at the top of the hill, the trail dove into the trees with a steep left-handed drop which turned into a very fast downhill run zig-zagging through the forest. later it emptied into a clearing below some powerlines, back onto a fire road, and a muddy uphill section of singletrack looping back to the start/finish line.
at lap #2, i made the long, slog up the fire road again. i found just enough ‘umph’ to pass two fellows at the top of the hill, before diving once again into the singletrack. on the descent through the steep entry, my front tire kicked up a rock about the size of, oh…, a large grapefruit. with my eyes concetrating on the trail in front of me, i’m not exactly sure of the chain of events that followed. as the rock kicked up, i heard it hit the rim of my rear tire, followed by what sounded like the rock getting wedged in the spokes and rotating with the wheel. there was a loud ‘CLUNK’, then finally just the normal sound of my freewheel as the rock was flung aside. “ok, crisis averted”, i thought.
as i continued downhill on the trial, i began to start pedaling again, only to find that pedaling wasn’t propelling me down the hill any faster. had my chain come off?? i stopped breifly to take a look. no, my chain was still there… but not my rear derailleur! the retaining bolt and a small remnant of the derailleur were still attached to the dropout at the rear axle where they should be, but the bulk of the horribly mangled derailleur was now hanging by the chain around the vicinity of my cranks. hmmm, that’s not right. race over.
luckily i still had two good tires and i was at the top of the race course. i wheeled my bike back up to the fire road and coasted speedily back down as racers inched their way up the fire road in the opposite direction. i went to the start/finish line to check in with a race official. “#186, DNF” i reported glumly.
i walked over to pam’s vantage point where i found her standing on her tip-toes eagerly trying to spot me ahead on the race course. i came up behind her and tapped her shoulder.
i guess all was not lost for the weekend. although i paid a $40 race entry fee and destroyed a $150 derailleur for 30 minutes of racing, at least i got to spend the next two hours quaffing IPA’s at the siren brew-pub in downtown port angeles rather than abusing my body.
the next race is this coming weekend already, in chelan. better get that derailleur fixed…. (photos of the damage to follow soon).
Posted by jason at April 28, 2003 12:15 PM