Except me and I feel like I’ve neglected my blog long enough this week. Jen’s blog, www.VaVaVelo.com  has been filling the gap in my absence. The start of the week seemed to be in slow mo while now that it is close to the end of the event everything is headed to fast forward. Probably started yesterday morning when Chris and I were up early to prepare for his sprint day. It may have actually started the night before when we got home late from Tuesday night racing when all the Glamis house residents were racing. (me a 500, Jen and Sandy scratch races-2 different age groups, Andy and Sam in the same age group doing a brutal Points race that ended up with only 4-5 finishers, our guys not part of those who finished)
Chris sprint day didn’t go exceptional. He has been trying to help Jen and Sandy have a great time, which they have, especially Sandy. That hasn’t left him much time to focus on his racing but he admits that his racing wasn’t his first concern this year. Sandy is from the BVV track and is relatively new to track specific racing but she has a big motor and has collected some hardware to help give our household a little bit of credibility.
We also have been plagued with some equipment difficulties. Mostly wheels. I brought a set of 808’s and a set of Mavics both of which have been difficult. The rear 808 axle lock nut cracked making the entire wheel unusable for most of the week. The rear Comete is just plane getting troublesome when trying to tighten it in the drop outs without it micro adjusting the chain tension. Andy had a tire go flat while riding rollers and one rear disc on loan for the Boulder crew developed a strange bearing noise that sounded very uncomfortable. Eventually, we have over come all the wheel problems and are back at full power again but not without some excess anxiety.
My Sprint day was today, a repeat schedule of Chris’ yesterday. We did get back home early last night for me to get a great nights sleep. (Actually got a little nap in the afternoon to help catch up as well) My agony of last year prior to sprint day didn’t happen. I felt prepared and finally felt like the bigger gear I was using felt good, not too big. In the end even the biggest gear I thought I could use this year wasn’t adequate. My 200 time was about .5 seconds slower than last year, getting me 6th of 13 in qualifying. My first round was the only 3 up of the first rounds. Did I forget to mention I hate 3 ups. (4 ups are even worse, I need to find some local sprint partners and train for 3 ups next year :{ ) I lost to my old nemesis from France who came back into my age group. 2nd of 3 about 1 wheel width too slow. That put me into another 3 up to get back in the rounds. Time to change to the unknown bigger gear for the 2nd round. It was a 3 up but really only 2 of us were competitive. I raced a Brit to another 1 wheel back loss putting me out of the rounds completely. Not sure where that placed me overall. They didn’t run a 9-12 round so it’s anyone’s guess where I placed. Out of the running for this year.
Next on todays race schedule was Jen and Sandy doing a Team Sprint. Great effort, good time but not good enough to garner any hardware.
Dan and Timmer were in some Points race heats, Dan coming through to get into the final. (Which I heard he took the Bronze medal, congrats to Dan for 3 medals so far)
No races for Andy today as he turned into a tourist for the afternoon getting into Manchester City center for some free time. The rest of the USA Glamis crew followed him and got to the Old Wellington Pub downtown for some great food in a cool location and for me a pint of the local brew, first of the week. A little walk around town and then back to the house to relax and yep, some blog work.
Points race for me tomorrow with that big gear to see how that goes and then I get a free day to roam some of the nearby sites, the town of Chester looks to be the choice. We will see if I can find my way there and back in time to watch Sam and Andy do the last non championship race called the Cossavella Cup. It is open to anyone over 50 years old.