Frozen Toes

For the non-locals who don't know about the bike racing scene in BOCOMO, this past Sunday was the formerly know as "Froze Toes" Frozen Toes bike race. I'm not sure when the name was switched- perhaps when the president of the local bike club started calling it "frozen toes". Anyhoo, it's about a 60 mile race (two 30 mile loops) in some of the most boring land in central Missouri. Anytime you can see more than a mile up the road (or in any direction for that matter) it's more than likely boring terrain.
I didn't race this year, or last, and probably not "next year" either. Just not my kind of race. What I did do was volunteer to be a follow vehicle driver for the race. Kind of help create a "rolling enclosure" and try to keep racers from abusing the yellow line too much and winding up as a hood ornament on Farmer Brown's daily commute to give the cattle hay. I was glad to do it and I got to watch the race.
Two years ago I think there were about 140 people in the race. This year- only about 50. I guess a bunch of people thought the weather was going to be bad- as it should be- this time of year. So I guess you could say it was a more "intimate" group. Lots of guys helping each other out. You know, like when you have to pee and ride a bike at the same time- kind of hard to pedal. So what do you do? You get another rider to push you while you're peeing- or trying to pee as appeared to be the case for several guys who seemed to have some accute stage fright keeping them from relieving themselves. Or maybe they just couldn't find it in the cold weather- not sure. Nonetheless, this was probably the most entaining part of the race for Prozenberger and me to watch since the rest of the race was fairly boring and slow this year. At more than one point I looked down at the speedometer to see we were going 14MPH. It was more like a ride than a race. But hey, that's easy from me to say from the drivers' seat of a warm dry car and only pushing the gas pedal to move.
It was an interesting perspective to stay behind the group the whole time. I did see a crash and one of the guys landed squarly on his face while still holding onto the handlebars. That was ugly. It was fun pacing a few people back up to the group when they got gapped off because of the wreck. One guy had the nerve to complain about the quality of the pace he got after the race. Sorry, but I don't think the officials who were watching would have been real happy with you getting any pace. I was happy to do it for whomever I could. I know Buttsmackers was appreciative.
As ususal...no chili left after the race. I think that makes five years for me now with no chili after. At least I did get to see Jimmy again. I almost couldn't resist hugging him- but I didn't want him to get too excited and put on the goloshes and get out the tacklebox.
If you don't get a lot of this post- I apologize- lots of inside jokes.