bake my field, take 2

UPDATED with real live photos!!!

Halfway through the Mt. Hood Circuit Race, I decided I never wanted to race my bike again. Not in Oregon, not in Cali or in Wisconsin or France or Boise or Boston or Batswana, Rwanda, or Dublin. No gelly food sources individually wrapped in little packages or blocks of chewy sugar for me. I’d go back to spelling chamois like shammy and ride with old men in zone two and be a happy camper who gladly ignores race flyers that boast a prize list of 20 bucks given eight deep.

I decided to hang my bike up for a good long break and period of profound life reflection, at the end of which I would possibly re-learn how to clip into my pedals, re-discover my freckle-lines, re-acquaint myself with helmet hair, and start thinking about losing the 20 pounds of cookie fat I’d gained in my absence off the bike.

Three days later I decided to race the SoCal District Road Race in Bakersfield the following weekend. Plans Change, I told my diminishing “but what about cookies and time OFF?” self. Besides, I reasoned, looking at the hilly course profile, SoCal is full of nothing but plus-sized lycra-stretching crit-lovers anyway (karmic retribution for this thought soon to follow).

I managed to hitch a ride into Bakersfield with Ozzie and his roommate Fred, a goofy little fluffy-haired boy with that reddish skin tone that comes only from either years of AA meetings, hours of stomach-clenching laughter, or a lifetime neglect of “Now Freddy, don’t forget your sunscreen!” A nice guy really, I actually like him, but indeed he is the type who attracts teasing and pranks like a wool skirt encrusted with furry balls of lint. And a terrible driver (Hi Fred, if you are reading this you are AWESOME and Thanks for the Ride!!!)

Fred borrowed the family truck from his dad, also a Fred. While Oz snagged the passenger seat, I gladly played the role of supportive woman and volunteered a two-hour impression of a tightly suffocated fetus as I stuffed myself into the back seat along with shoes, pumps, helmets, random chamois/shammies and caffeine pills and wheels and sunscreen and package of mint crème-filled organic imitation Oreos (my cookie self and I compromised).

My vantage point as Tracie-in-a-box also allowed me perfect view of the Speedometer and little else.

As we headed east from San Luis on Highway 58 the road twisted and twirled and the truck sloshed and squirmed like a drunken ballerina with more than one “oh? I don’t know? A… um… vodka on the rocks? Please?” sloshing around in her 93-pound frame. Left right left right jump twirl spin right hop bound twirl twirl we went. My tummy gave a little hop skip jump and as the road straightened out Fred leaned over the steering wheel like the Howling Scientist over his newly Petri-dished “specimens” (“Yes, grow my pretties, grow! Faster Faster!”) and the Speedometer crept its way up from 60 to 80 to 90… 92.. god I’m going to puke… 93…god I’m going to die… and I stopped looking at 96.

I considered my options.

OPTION 1: Assume the role of the Frighteningly Controlling Bitch. (“SLOW DOWN THIS CAR THIS INSTANT, ARE YOU FUCKING OFF YOUR ROCKER YOU SILLY LITTLE MAN?!?! IF YOU DO NOT SLOW DOWN THIS INSTANT I WILL PERSONALLY TELL EVERY GIRL IN A 300 MILE RADIUS THAT YOU HAVE HERPES*!!!”) The Frighteningly Controlling Bitch is fast and effective and really a perfect solution in theory but rather more difficult to put into practice. (IMPORTANT NOTE to prospective females: Fred does not have Herpes!! AND he’s single!!!)

OPTION 2: Assume the role of the Freakishly Sensitive Female. (“Oh Oh Oh! LOOK how fast you are going! Oh, do PLEASE slow down oh PLEASE! My stomach, oh I don’t feel well, oh oh too fast oh oh we’re all going to diii-iiiiieeee!”) The Freakishly Sensitive Female is too embarrassing an option for actual consideration.

OPTION 3: Shut up and pray. Except I’m not horribly religious (read: God Who?) so I just shortened it to Shut up. Besides, suffocated fetuses (feti?) don’t talk anyway.

In short, I didn’t puke and I didn’t die but I did get to the race really fast!

The course was a brown, parched little number characteristic of the breathtaking Bakersfield landscape. You know the scene in The Matrix where Morpheus explains to Neo about how the ‘Real World’ looks, and the Machines are picking the babies off plants and everything is all dead and ruined and horrible looking? (Insert comment about how I know I am a total dork here and no additional comments to this affect are necessary). Well anyway, that’s Bakersfield in a nutshell. You started up on this eroded cliff (“Panorama Point”) which looked out upon smoggy acres of dead nothingness and trailer parks.

Panoramic Indeed!

My prediction of a lard-filled field of donut-eaters was quickly fed to the wolves as I lined up against girls like Gabriela Gonsales-Ferrat (I wish I could have a name so exotic), a couple beanpole Southbay Wheelmen girls, and a squad of Simple Green women whose combined weight probably rivaled the likes of a third-grader.

And they were all so friendly.

“I used to be a Vay-lo Bay-la,” Gabby told me, and her many teammates quickly swarmed around me to ask if I am acquainted with the one and only Jennifer Chapman. Jesus, Jen. You’re like a freaking celebrity. (Possible Future Tabloid Headlines: “Jen Hosts Bicycle John’s Team, John Gets Jealous! Jen and Brent Expecting a Brentiffer?!? Exclusive Jen and Paris Photos: Girls Caught in Action Behind Bars!!)

The racing in itself was interesting, as it is always interesting racing against a field of unknowns. The style of racing was also a bit different from what I’m used to, but still challenging in its own way (namely that is was about 8,000 degrees Kelvin and there were no neutral feeds – luckily I had a savior of the day – thanks Chance Noble’s Dad! Seriously there was no way, I mean not a single way imaginable that a human being could have done that race without a feed and not ended up looking like a pile of rock salt in the ER). Anyway, the hills and heat made it a bit of a doozey and what with cramping, barfing, and all the other lovelies that dehydration tends to invite I was happy to finish at the back of the second group.

Ouch-and-a-half.

Just as the course was an out-and-back sort of loop, this is an out-and-back sort of race report. So add in some variations of Diet Pepsi, pepper-chee-nees, and Gatorade, and the drive home was more or less the drive there, except backwards.

Oh and we did make a little pit stop on the way home too.

We must’ve looked a sight pulled off in the dirt on the side of 58, out in the middle of nowhereville with only the hawks and lizards to see us. Looking all green in the face about to puke and Fred in his Retired Golfer plaid shorts and me squatting to take a pee in my trailer trash dress and ozzie crouched behind a Cal Trans sandwich board taking a dump. “Loose Gravel” the sign read.

Loose Gravel Indeed.

Home and Safe, we decided on Chinese food for dinner, solely because “they have soy sauce there”. I filled my plate with rice and chow mein and black bean beef and doused it all in a smothering of soy sauce and the waitress gave me a strange look when she happened to pass just as I was emptying the salt shaker into my 7Up.

Just another day of bike racing.