News Flash! Weekend Race Report!

While most of Athens languished in bed trying to smother their hangover with pillows and moans, the Sunshine/Loose Nuts cyclocross team was in Savannah taking our collective hangover to the next level by riding a road bike over rough terrain as fast as possible.  To most of you this must seem like a terrible idea, and I can assure you all that it is.  If there is one lesson that Sunday rides have taught me, it's that you absolutely cannot outrun a hangover, no matter how fast or hard you ride.  Not even Tom Boonen with a nose full of the Devil's Dust can outsprint the after-effects of the dozens of Milanese dirty martinis from the night before.  However, it is important to try, because the multiplied pain and suffering experienced on those hungover Sunday rides only make the non-hungover rides easier, and are therefore useful training excercises.  There is no better way to simulate the worst day you could possibly have on the bike than to pump your body full of intoxicants and junk food for as long as possible on Saturday, pass out fully clothed in a horribly uncomfortable position, sleep fitfully for a few cold hours, wake in the morning much earlier than you would have liked, drink some swampy coffee, and then be expected to get on the bike and ride rather than lie on a puddle on the couch staring off into space.  Just to make things interesting and level the playing field against our vastly outmatched competition, this was exactly the program that Sunshine/Loose Nuts sporting director Vinnie Van GoGo designed for the second race of the Georgia Cyclocross season.  The team was completely on board and embraced the plan wholeheartedly.  Our high-dration plan started at the first rest stop on the highway to Savannah and didn't quit until we arrived back in Athens nearly 36 hours later.  Gallons of beer and pounds of pizza were consumed as we focused on making our racing experience as exquisitely horrible as possible.  We arrived at the race course on Sunday morning with bubbly bellies and shivery legs, and proceeded to lay down the hurt on the competition, spectators and ourselves in a grotesque display of painful mediocrity.  For anyone interested in our racing action or our actual placings, some photos are here and the series standings can be found here.   If any of you race fans out there feel compelled to ask why we didn't win, remember the words of our sage advisor BikeSnobNYC, who says that winning is for dopers and sandbaggers anyway, and we certainly don't want to be lumped into either of those groups of unsavory and immoral people.  We'd rather handicap ourselves with strong drink and insufficient training than cheat and dope our way to inglorious victory.  Welcome to the new paradigm for amateur cycling: the race for second place, brought to you by Sunshine/Loose Nuts racing, Sparks Plus (aka the Party Panther), Terrapin Brewing, The Duke of The Mallet, and of course the number threven.