So Wild and Free. So Far From Me.

I made the troll grumpy by trying to take away his beer.

What a weekend, what a weekend... We took Friday off and headed to Madison, Wisconsin around 11'ish. It was a beautiful day.

We decided to stop in Mt Horeb and get lunch and a beer at the Grumpy Troll. Sadly, the pizza place didn't open until 4, but we got nice sandwiches and fish tacos and the beer was very nice too. I love October, because everyone's seasonal beer is an Oktoberfest brew and I love those.

We got into Madison around 3. We had an Air BnB place there and paid very little money for it. This was our view. Nice, huh? Since neither one of us was feeling 100% yet, we took a little nap before we headed out.

Our race was located at the Trek headquarters. We got pint glasses with the race logo on it and they were giving away lots of  swag and free frites. Yum!

My plan was to preride the course and see how I felt and then decide whether I would try to race this weekend or not. Oh, holy hell! The course was crazy tough and technical. just rode it VERY slowly once and I was wrecked. I was willing to keep an open mind, but it was  pretty unlikely that I'd be able to race, at least on Saturday.

I went back to the parking lot and talked to my friend, Linda while John finished riding the course. We found the name of a great pizza place that was only two blocks from where we were staying and headed to Salvatore's. The food was amazing. At one point we realized we were sitting next to the light switches and we joked with the waitress that I was going to turn the lights on and off really quickly and make it like a strobe light. The waitress looked at us blankly and then laughed. When she walked away, John said she was probably too young to even know what a strobe light was...

 I woke-up the next morning with a migraine. It was my 3rd one in a week. Oy! Taking migraine meds can be dangerous and even taking them once in a week, can make me pretty weak. There was on way I could race...Or even ride around on the course, for that matter. I sat in the car and read my book while John prerode. He was well enough to race and did a great job. He still wasn't at the top of his game, but he did well on such a tough course.  On Sunday, he was a little spent form still being sick and racing the day before, but I was amazed at how well he did under those conditions.

 I got to see most of the Iowa people race over the weekend. The Iowa women kicked some serious butt. I get a little excited and probably cheer too loudly, but I am always so impressed with my women friends who race. What can I say?

 I always love the heckling that goes on during CX races. My favorite from this weekend came during the Single Speed race. The guy in the photo above was closing the gap with the first place guy, and one of the guys with a megaphone said, "Watch out! The guy from Def Leppard is catching you!"

 Some other fun heckles during the single speed race:

"You know the coolest thing about a single speed bike?....Nothing"

"Single Speed - a HUGE excuse to go really, really slow."

I also love that CX races are so family friendly. Along with a free keg of beer, there was poster board and markers for the kids to make signs. Drunken kids making signs, is always fun. I also love that this photo is of a baby beating his mom with a cowbell. So sweet.

So, once again. I was sad that I couldn't race, but I had one hell of a fun weekend anyway.