Trailer tire exploded during our drive to Stokesville.
A busted tire on the side of the road halfway between Richmond and our destination. That’s how our racing weekend started. It provided foreshadowing for our weekend and was an excellent glimpse into our program.
Things aren’t going to be easy. Things aren’t always smooth. Sometimes you are going to be stuck on the side of the road.
But nobody panicked.
Despite our trailer tire basically exploding, nobody seemed phased. Korey ran barefoot to say hi to Wop.
Khnaz went and found his AirPods.
Matt busted out the spare tire.
Ryan walked down the highway and picked up a piece of the wheel.
Pumping up the spare tire with a bike pump. Even our spare already had a screw!
We probably got the tire on in under 10 minutes. Of course, we then found out the tire was flat and would later learn it had a screw in it. So we had to pump the tire up with a bike pump.
Things could have been much worse. This could have happened in the dark. It turned dark 5 minutes after we got back on the road. Or we could have been without a spare. Or the exploding tire could have caused a wreck.
We made it to Stokesville Campground a little after 9 pm. Set up tents and started a fire. With our late entrance, we had a late-night snack roasting hot dogs over the fire. Laughs and jokes in the dark before finally telling everyone they had to get to sleep.
By 8 am Saturday morning most everyone was up and slowly gearing up for a day of races.
Everyone went out for a preride in the morning. During the ride, the high school kids were coaching up the middle schoolers.
The first race of the day for RCC is Knowledge and Chip. Knowledge forgot his clips and actually said he was cursed before the race. He had burnt his finger on the fire the night before and was really down leading up to his race. One might have said he was looking for an excuse not to race.
Then he raced. And again he proved that he has natural talent on the bike. He can control the bike. He can power up hills. And he loves going downhill. He even watches downhill videos because of how much he enjoyed Bryce.
Knowledge with an entirely new look post race. All smiles the rest of the day.
So he races and finishes. And he looks completely different. He is smiling. He has an air of confidence. He is excited. And he said how he had fun and about how he tried to speed up at the end to pass someone. How he didn’t use the breaks at all on the big downhill finish. It would have been easy to say take it easy and sit out the race. But winning isn’t what racing is always about. It is about pushing yourself. Challenging what you might believe about yourself. And winning in the experience.
Chip battled through his first race at Stokesville. He is still working on his endurance and his ability to work uphill. But he didn’t get down on himself and he kept pedaling.
Next race was Ashari. She is in 5th grade. And while she only has one lap, it is the same course as Korey’s varsity lap. She has a great start and is in the middle of the race early on. Then she falls. We didn’t see it but we can see the dirt on her shoulder.
Ashari emotional after the race getting congratulated by Executive Director Matt Kuhn.
She is okay, but she is ready for the race to be over. But she has only completed about 1/4 of the race. She stops when she sees us and we tell her she should try going through the next section to see how it feels.
At these races there is a “sweeper” who stays with the person the furthest back. At the point of our conversation, this man says that it probably would be a good idea to quit. Matt respectfully asked for some space.
Ashari would get back to pedaling and would battle through the rest of the course. She kept moving and she finished the race. She was emotional at the finish. Again, sometimes the experience is larger than the race.
Wop didn’t race until 4:50 pm. A nap was needed!
Lunchtime, hammock naps, preride, and quiet time at the campsite for the middle of the day.
Korey is next up for the Varsity race at 2:15 with three laps. Right before his race, we get told we need to vacate our campsite. We only booked Friday night, so we were told new campers were coming in so we needed to leave where we were, which happened to be directly on the race course.
So as Korey starts competing, everyone else just starts cleaning up and packing. Again, it could have been a reason to get mad, annoyed, raise your voice, question things, etc. But instead, people just made do.
Korey started in 18th from his last race. He would go on to have an excellent overall race. He steadily moved up little by little. He would get up to 15th by the end of the first lap. By the end of the second lap he was in 13th and was 15 seconds behind 12th place. While he finished in 13th, he would close that gap and finish only a second behind. He pushed the entire race with excellent form.
Kamari before the High School Girls JV race.
Kamari was steady the entire race. She battled through her two laps. While it wasn’t as fast as her Fall times, it was still a 15% improvement from one year ago.
Khnaz after his High School Fresh/Soph race.
Khnaz and Wop were our last race of the day. Their race started at 4:50. To recap, they got up by 8 and hung around all day until it was their turn to race. Khnaz would go on to have his best race ever. Being in such a large field it was a battle the entire time. And with 98 other competitors, it was still a challenge to move up in the placements. But Khnaz pushed as much as he could. He was passing people throughout the race and had so many high points where you could see him really challenging himself. We were all really proud to congratulate him at the finish. He cut off three minutes from his fall racing times.
Wop couldn’t make it to Miller School the week before. So this was going to be his first race of the season. He recently moved and changed schools. So he had not been riding as often as he would have liked. And without a placement in the first race he would start at the back of a 98 person field.
Wop battled and had a steady pace throughout the race. He competed until the very end, even catching two riders at the finish as he sprinted to the finish.
Extra large slices of pizza on our way home!
We packed up, and pumped up our spare tire once again before heading home. We stopped for the largest pizza slices on the way back.
‘Can’t Stop, Won’t Stop.’
Young and old, on a bike or in a car. Life is hard. For some it can be even harder.
But you can’t stop.
It is one of the beauties of cycling. If you stop, the bike stops. The only way to get somewhere is to just keep pedaling.
We can’t stop.