Providence Day 2: The Sound of Silence.

Another beautiful hot day in Roger Williams Park.  Masters' riders out on course.

One of the amateur mens' fields being staged, a lengthy and complicated process with huge fields. 

At 4am, I woke up.  And stayed awake.  I didn't sleep well.  I had realized some things about our uh, hotel.  We ran out of toilet paper in the middle of the night.  My midnight search for toilet paper throughout the room turned up nothing but a spider.  The bed lacked a fitted sheet.  The splashboard in the bathroom had peeled slightly away from the wall.  Bob said when he lifted the toilet lid, it sort of...fell off.  After you flushed the toilet, it kept making an "I just flushed" noise until you pried up the tank lid and tweaked the chain inside.  I'm a light sleeper, and I didn't discover these problems until late, very late, in the evening.  But you'll receive that level of service for over a hundred dollars a night.  Don't ever stay at the America's Best Value Inn in North Kingstown, RI.  Management has since informed us they want to give us a 40% discount off our next stay, because "there is never an excuse for providing a valued guest, such as you with anything less than a perfect experience."  I informed management that nothing will convince me their service is "high quality" but a full refund might convince me they have a sense of decency.

When Bob got up we went out to hunt for breakfast.  We found a place called the Breakfast Nook.  First the waitress didn't like our travel mugs coming in with us.  "No outside food or drink allowed."  We told her the mugs were empty.  She said she'd have to charge us for coffee refills after our first cup.  Fine, we said.  Then the coffee, slow to arrive, felt lukewarm and tasted slightly of gasoline.  So we turned down the not-free refill.  The waitress got my order wrong.  I wanted the vegetable omelette but with regular eggs, NOT whites and with cheddar cheese.  The omelette came made with whites only and with some tiny specks of orange that may have been cheese-if the cook had added a half teaspoon of it.  In the absence of hot sauce (where was it?) I doused my tasteless omelette in ketchup, salt and pepper.  We ate quickly and left to find better coffee down the road-we'd seen a promising bakery the night before.  If I had to race on half a night's poor sleep, I wanted something stronger than lukewarm weak gasoline.  I needed the caffeinated equivalent of rocket fuel because at that point only the waitress at the Breakfast Nook moved more slowly than I did.  Down the road about a mile we found Felicia's, a super-hip bakery and coffeehouse featuring items like gluten-free pumpkin muffins and French vanilla coffee with real ground vanilla bean added during brewing.  They also had more enlightened attitudes toward travel mugs.  Felicia herself chatted with us for a few minutes.  Up side:  best French vanilla coffee ever.  Fly in the ointment:  Bob ordered the house blend but got hazelnut.  Sigh.  He found out while we were already en route to the park.

Bad hotel rooms and botched breakfasts aside, Bob and I had a fairly relaxed morning at the race venue. First I wandered aimlessly and rubbernecked all around the bike expo, coffee in hand, and found a brand-new Mavic bike computer I just couldn't pass up for such a low price.   A lot of girls shop for fashion accessories.  Then, some would rather shop for bike parts.  And ogle bicycles.

Raleigh makes cross bikes.  Who knew?  These are very easy on the eye.

Be still, my heart.   I can't breathe.  It wasn't even my size.  But I could look at it forever.

A few friends from our neck of the woods:
Tim Leonard (NYCross.com) and
Dana Cooreman (Mission in Motion)

Richard Sachs came over to talk to Bob and I.  Our retro-style wool Stan's NoTubes sweaters acted as conversation-starters, and we introduced ourselves and chatted for a few minutes.  Then Bob stayed at the tent working on his bike and helping various racers who came by to ask for tubeless tips.  I took the race bike to Shimano neutral support to check that front derailleur and my chain-watcher tool after my little chain-dropping incident the day before.  I waited in line with "The Girl with the Cowbell Tattoo." The Shimano mechanic agreed that better-pedigreed new bikes temperamentally demand near-constant fussing and tuning until they mellow into smooth efficiency. My bike basked in the attention as if it had never received a good wrenching before (shameless lying hussy) and he gave it back to me shifting snappy both back and front, the back wheel newly trued, the front and rear brakes centered on the rims. I pedaled around, ran through all the gears, tested the brakes, and felt ready to go.  I returned it to the tent and took the pit bike out on course for a few laps to make sure it worked well.  I didn't get to ride consecutive laps, but maybe one to two in between races.  It went like this:  after the end of every race, about a hundred people jumped under the tape and got onto the course.  We'd all ride half a lap and then the officials would stop us just past the pits, and we piled up on top of each other, unclipped, stood waiting.  Then about 45 seconds later they'd turn us loose.  We'd ride the rest of the lap and then get kicked off the course while they staged the next race at the start.  I'd go back to the tent, sit down, drink water, wait, get back on the course, ride another lap, go back to the tent, and so on.

Riding an early warm-up lap, in my rather big jersey.

Then I had less than two hours before my race.  My bike waited, ready.  I changed my uniform, refilled water bottle, got ready to go.  Pit bike to the bits.  I went to the trainer tent for about 20 minutes, pedaling while sucking on cough drops for the sore throat I'd badly aggravated the day before.  Bob hung out with the Saris rep there talking shop.   After trainer time I planned to spend the last half hour riding the course before we got called to staging. Today I didn't feel jittery.  No more than normal jitters, anyway.  Maybe fewer than normal.  I felt pretty tired.
Richard Fries called us to staging with his trademark dramatic flair.  We received another no-beer-handup warning, but as on Saturday, the officials okayed water handups in the pit due to the heat, on any lap except for the first or last. Third row today for me.  Two minutes to start.  I shifted into the big chain ring in front since the opening road section was longer today, and flat.  I tightened my shoe buckles, tightened and knotted the drawstring on my shorts (I suddenly remembered snagging them on my saddle during a remount Saturday-I don't have a skin suit yet for cross).  My mind wiped itself absolutely blank.  Dead silence inside.  No thought, no emotion, nothing.

Waiting for the whistle.  

Thirty-second warning.  Dead quiet as we waited.  The whistle came five seconds later.  I don't remember clipping in.   I must have shifted up several gears.  But I had a great start for once.  I started moving right past people, kept moving.  The field turned it full on.  I kept moving up.  Not so many people in front today.  At least not in this moment.  Curving around, the pavement.  Narrowing.  Narrowing.  The pavement goes on forever and I advance.  In the front of this group, stretched to near-single file-I glimpse purple shorts, white series leader jersey.  Laura van Gilder.  Green and black.  Mary McConneloug.  This is the front pack.  Time slows and the line of riders swing to the left to set up for the right hander up the curb.  I shift down to the small ring in front.  Mary and Laura and the next five or six come around into the 180 curve and shortly before I hit the curb they're coming back at me, flash past me.  Mo Bruno Roy in white skinsuit.  Follow the train.  Watch the bodies in front, curve around with them.  No brakes?  Who the hell is riding my bike?  Small gaps opening.  Hang on. Hang on.  Descent.  Wind back up the corners, downhill, then uphill and around, work around back to the pits.  Bob yelling something.  I can't hold this speed, in spite of cornering better than I ever have in my life.  Like someone else.  It doesn't last, and the boxcar slowly detaches from the bullet train.  I can't stay with that.  I don't have the engine or the power steering and the women who do start passing me.  Demoralizing, yes, but only slightly, because eventually you find yourself with the people of your own ability level and then your own little race within the race begins.  And that's how it goes.  Meanwhile Richard Fries narrated the epic ongoing battle between Laura Van Gilder and Mary McConneloug, who came out loaded for bear today and looking to even the score.  I heard brief snippets of this drama enacted on the same course.

The course rode faster today with fewer technical bits but the same number of dismount points.    I had a more consistent and faster ride than Saturday because I stepped up my cornering game noticeably.  No dropped chain and no slowing down today.   I came through the stairs and barriers faster and more smoothly.  The race passed in a blur.  I felt ready to puke but still thought "What? Already?" when they rang us into the bell lap.  Again Jenny Ives and I ended up nearly together at the end of the race.  Jenny still beat me.  Sigh.  One of these days, Jenny.  One of these days.

Mary avenged herself and took the win.  And yes, she
felt pretty good about it.

After the race, Bob and I talked to Mary and Mike Broderick a little, and congratulated Mary on her win.  She was THRILLED.  Then we packed up the van and headed down the road directly into the sunset for the six-hour haul back to Newfield, and back to real life and our respective offices on Monday.  Boring.

But even to hang on behind the front group of this amazing race for half a lap taught me something.  That half a lap took a lot out of me and I'm sure it cost me something because I nearly didn't recover, but well, wow.  I learned a few things about the level of speed and skill required to mix it up here and where exactly I stood at the bottom of the food chain.  If I can ride half a lap like that front pack rode the entire race, then maybe I can learn to ride like that a little more, a little longer, and so on...small steps in the right direction.  I'm not sure riding into the moment at the edge of control is the best way to learn, but certain it's the most thrilling.  And then you continue to process the experience afterwards.  And the entire time the voices in my head shut up completely.  Outside, the screaming spectators, announcer, and cowbells all blared as loudly as they ever had on Saturday, but for that half lap at the beginning of my race, inside I heard nothing but the sound of silence.

Read about Mary's win here on VeloNews.
Complete results for Day 2 here, also on VeloNews.

Richard Sachs heads back to his car.