Bonjour. Bon au revoir Soulard.

Mmmmm. Soulard. Rich in history. Rich in architecture. Rich in twists and turns for racing. I have family history down there but am pretty fuzzy on the details. It has the oldest farmer's market in the U.S!

So Jim and I get to Soulard quickly thanks to Jim's lead foot and my gas guzzling Infiniti Mobile. We find a reallygreat out of the way parking spot in the shade which for me is a summertime necessity. We mosey over and register. See Doug and Sean and Jim waves and says hi to about 40 people. We go back to the care to prep and warm up. Jim went up to the johns and pooped. When he came back he informed me of a 20' tardiness for the start time. Well alrighty then. Good to hear. I warm up some more and keep going back over to the course to spy that the previous category race is still going on. Check. Go back to the car to shove ice anywhere I can get it on my person and head back across Broadway to the venue. I now see people cooling down and some other folks from what I assumed, from my category, warming up. I see Joe Montegna and start to pedal around the course to the start line. Jim comes riding up to us and starts snapping pics of us and all was great. We then headed around the last turn to the start?finsh straight only to see up ahead a couple hundred meters a mass of racers flying around the first turn! Me a Jim look at each other and I'm all like wtf?! "Is that my race?" "Ya" says Jim. So I bookit and fly by the officials and yell and point to my number. With that course being the way it is the peloton was single file and you couldn't see the end of it for all the turns. I was like omg! So I get on the back at about a half lap in and start to make my way up to the front which is where I want to be. I get up to the first ten guys after about 5 laps. We get to this one part and I get sandwiched between two guys and the guy on my right and me start to lock bars. I go left and just at that moment the group mushrooms and I have no choice but to go left at which point I overlapped the guy in front of me and I fall to my left. Onto the aggregate-rich curbing on my ass, hand and ankle. I get up put my chain on, remount onl to find the front wheel won't ratate. I adjust the brake then the chase is back on. I then tt for about 15' and the officials finally pulled me off the course. And during this time I missed turns ON THE COURSE three times! I couldn't tell which way to go! Fwiw I did not know that one could use their free lap alottment for a crash. I thougth it to be used for flats only!
Me flailing violently. Why does Jim take better shots with my camera than I?


It turns out I wasn't the only one to miss the start. One of the officials told me about a half dozen missed it as well. Sean, after winning 4/5 was going to do the 3/4 but didn't even have enough time to get a new jersey put on with the appropriate number! And he was parked basically on the course. Travesty I say. Oh well. Poor Joe didn't make onto the peleton at all.

Jim's race went far better. He ruled that race! He was in like every break! I was walking the course for photos and whenever the group Jim was in would come by he would be puttin' it to em'. Impressive. He ended up with 6th! I think he has a fan club forming of which it's members are following his performances!


Doug surprised himself with just finishing the race. He has been busy doing other life things and had pre race reservations. He was definatley a factor in the pack and looked good.
Good job Little Dougie Greek! Bud got fourth in the masters so I gueshe got some money. He said "It was hard!"
The worst thing besides the "waste" of resources for me was is another race where points where not accrued. And it was real hard standing around watching the cool kids warm up. Daaaaaamn!

$50.00 one way!