628 Challenge - The Full Monte

With the curtain finally down on the race season (we here at the NECS are not big fans of Cross racing unless it involves a lot of beer) and the Mayor firmly ensconced in the new Dark Horse Cycle HQ, it was time for the first official non race of the season - The 628 Challenge, essentially a 2 person team time trial/orienteering race.The melee of the past week had left me mentally exhausted and questioning where everything had gone wrong in life. I had even put the call into the Mayor, officially withdrawing from the race. With a lot of encouragement from the Mayor, a healthy amount of manual labor, copious amounts of fine wine and another night of deep sleep compliments of my good friend 10mg Ambien, I awoke on race day with a superior attitude and superior state of mind (little did I know just how much I was going to need it!).
Remember how you always imagined what it would be like to ride in the peleton of the TdF or what it would be like to have a go with the top endurance mtb guys in the country during a race? Well today was my lucky (unlucky?) day to finally find just what it was going to feel like - Monte had selected me as his teammate for the event! For those loyalistas of the NECS that don't know about Mike "Monte" Montalbano there are two words to describe him - Focused Animal and his vocabulary does not include the words "second place". This is a guy that on his first try at a dirty century went down to the Shenandoah 100 and smoked the singlespeed class with a winning time of 8:02 then went to the Mohican 100, gave the Harlan Price the "Lance stare" and proceed to grind him into the dust for another win. I was scared and starting having visions of what this was going to feel like.There was a lot of laughing and finger pointing in my direction on how little I was going to enjoy what was going to be served up to me shortly. I rolled with the punches and fell back into my usual preride antics at the starting line, undoing the QR on MacGyver's front wheel, tossing his bottles to the side and trying to let air out of his tires. Having had enough of the tomfoolery the Great Gatsbysent the first team out. Silence swept the field as everyone took note of the direction Bill Lobb & Old Bill headed off in. Old Bill is the Magellan of Stewart, having put in more trails and miles then the rest of us combined and if there was anyone that would know the shortest route it would be this team. One by one we headed out in 30 second intervals with only Obamador taking a different route, clearly this was becoming less of an orienteering event and more of a flat out race, oh god was it going to hurt!
Finally we came to the line with only MacGyver's team behind us and Monte finalizing our strategy - flat out! We rolled off the line and immediately were into a pace line for the first couple of miles to the entrance to Stewart and we were moving! Not satisfied with the ratios of an mtb cassette Monte had opted for a 12/25 road cassette and I was doing everything in my power to stay on his wheel. As we entered Stewart we caught our 4th team (Senor Agua, Jocelyn & Infantile Tom) and Senor Agua hopped on my wheel and stayed with us briefly until he realized his teammates were over 100 yards back in no time. The very astute Infantile Tom threw a couple of verbal barbs my way as we passed and they were all shocked and amused at my inability to respond. Finally, a sighting of the rarest of all Stewart creatures - Poecilia C-Dubus Montalbania Reticulata. While there was no confirmed pictures, DEA officials speculated the creature probably looked like thisBy the end of the race there had been numerous sighting of this frisky little guy and when asked to comment C-Dubs could barely speak, mumbling something about leaving his lungs back on the trail.
Arriving at the first stop, the old umbrella factory, Monte punched his card then turned to me and asked "where is your card"? Apparently in a moment as rare as a full solar eclipse, while the Mayor was handing out the rider punch cards, C-Dubs was in the DH HQ doing his best to shatter the porcelain and peel the paint off the walls (hey when you race with Monte every last pound you can shed helps) and I didn't have a card. Using lightning quick reflexes from his years of being a conductor on New Jersey Transit, Monte did the old double punch and off we went to LTD passing Old Bill's team right after the factory and solidifying our overall lead. (It should be noted that Infantile Tom, to shamelessly gain time, threw the hole punch to the other side of the factory). Rolling out from LTD we encountered heavy traffic on the single track. A couple of "love taps" to the some bar ends sent some riders into the deep weeds and we were off for the 15 minute bonus at Beaver Pond. Shortly after leaving LTD I had my last clear memory of the race when we took a wrong turn and Monte's killer instinct came out with "we just dropped 1 1/2 minutes". Back on the fire roads its was another all out pace line as we took the long way to the Beaver pond (probably a 2-3 miles of extra riding). Approaching the check point MacGyver came by in the other direction having already procured the elusive punch. At the post race party he commented how I was leaning to one side and my eyes were glazed over - another confirmed sighting of the C-Dubs guppy. Then came the line that I feared the most "we're at least 5 minutes behind - we have to put the hammer down" (what the hell had we been doing so far?). Shortly after this rumor has it that Fat Chick had headed for the wrong side of the beaver pond and when he spotted Infantile Tom shouted - I think I'm lost. To which Rossi simply responded, no shit, and rode off to the next check point (I'm surprised he didn't throw the hole puncher in the pond as well). Before I knew it we were coming up to the check point at Major Mike and MacGyver was right in front of us. Despite my dazed and confused state of mind I was able to quickly calculate that in just a few miles we had recouped 4 1/2 minutes and were back in the game! On the climb up Major Mike MacGyver's teammate, Chuck, faltered and despite my state of delirium I sensed he was in trouble and there might be an opening. As we came off of Major Mike ahead of MacGyver we still didn't have the lead but I knew it was time to dig deep and once again put the hammer down to the final check point - 46er, a rusted old 1946 Ford. We managed to hit the check point, retrace our route back out of the woods and onto the final road stretch for home without passing MacGyver. I might have been hurting really bad but knowing we were back in the lead is just what I needed to make the final stretch to the finish.
Out on the fire road it was, you guessed it, pace line time and soon we were on Not Over 40 Miles and Mr. Happy. Knowing Monte wasn't going to want to provide any free rides I shifted up and pulled along side as we went past hoping it would be enough to get a gap and discourage a chase. With Monte calling the gaps we came to the bottom of the final climb where my tank started running on fumes. Suddenly there was a bright light at the top of the hilland the climb became a lot easier. "We have 50 yards on them" snapped me out of my hallucination and I realized that I had in fact not met my maker but was getting a bit of an assist from Monte in the form of a push. Once over the top there was still a gradual rise but I managed to grab Monte's wheel and power it home to cross the line in 55:05 catching the Mayor napping in the shop as he expected times in the 1:30 range!
With all of the teams in, (except Obamador, who was as lost as his namesake's policy) and the beers flowing, the final standingswere about to be announced when suddenly MacGyver dropped his nook, crapped in his diapers, fell to the ground and started crying hysterically claiming foul because C-Dubs failed to punch his card. The Mayor, acknowledging that what C-Dubs had suffered through was worse then thisawarded first to Team Pain Train(To get Monte's perspective on the day take a visit to http://rigidnsingle.blogspot.com/) Amazingly second place was a dead heat between MacGyver/Scott and Not Over 40 Miles/Mr. Happy. Immediately the call went out from the crowd to settle it as real men do - with a bike toss. Mr. Happy, fearing the combination of beer and the centrifugal force from the throw would result in a Technicolor yawn, sent Not Over 40 Miles for the attempt
Next up, having changed his diaper was Spartacus, giving the ladies a full muscle flexbefore letting loose with this Olympic silver medal winning toss.
And finally in the 3 person team category and sporting a true Beer Cross attitude of having fun were Infantile Tom, Senor Agua and Jocelyn "Straight Arm" Linscott. With the awards out of the way, the consumption of beer increased dramatically along with the outlay of dogs, burgers and clams which, as usual, were handled masterfully by Top Chef. And while Infantile Tom had reached his 3 beer limit before the wife arrived, he and the Mayor embraced in past memoriesas other members of the team gave their opinion of what to do with 650B bikes.