R13.31: GSVA Keirin Cup 8/21 - Cat 1/2/3

A decent-sized group of NY racers descended upon the garden state velodrome to bring havoc and destruction upon the unfortunate citizens of Wall, NJ.  I headed down by myself with my swan in tow, meeting up with team kissena, which was comprised of Kieran, Andy and Josh, and JoshS.  The format was a three-round keirin omnium.

I did some not-too-motivated warming up, which isn't a good idea at GSVA, because the track rides a lot differently at speed than any other track i've been on.  One day I'll do a full scientific inquiry into the matter with an engineering survey and everything, but until that time I'll just accept the fact that it's hard to stay low on the track at speed.  Or maybe I should do more crit racing to get used to actually having to apply steering input into turns.

This phenomenon came back to me rather abruptly in the first race when I tried to attack and instead just started moving uptrack instead, much to the anger of the riders behind me.  I seem to remember this being the round where Andy pipped me at the line for 5th place.  That's what I get for sitting up and not looking around.

The next round consisted of me not winning things either.  What did happen, though, was this hot shit local yokel started yelling at Andy for 'chopping his wheel'.  What really happened, though, is andy came around him.  He started yelling at Andy, though, who seemed more confused than anything, but it pissed me off, so I dug right into him.  This guy spent every moment off the bike talking as loud as possible about how fast he was, how tough t-town keirins are, the impressive size and girth of his dick and how he controls the weather with his mind.  Well, that's my guess as to what he was talking about, because I tried to zone him out as best I could.  It's kind of like trying to ignore the car alarm that's been going off outside for the past hour.  Long story short, he yelled at Andy, i yelled at him, he threatened to beat me up, i got off my bike ready for blows and he scurried away.  I told Sam that this nutjob seemed to be interested in trying to fight anybody from NY for some reason, he said some words to him and the guy packed up his shit and left.  And there was peace and quiet for the rest of the night.

The final round involved some bikes and stuff.  I tried for a long attack, but it would seem keirins aren't my specialty.

In the end I came in third place somehow, behind Kieran the keirin killer, and JoshS the hard-to-come-up-with-a-nickname-on-the-spot guy.  Yeah, you can tell this race report is being written on four hours of sleep.  Deal with it.

Afterward, I put my nice ratcheting 15mm wrench on the roof of my car, drove off, and gorged myself on food with the other guys at the diner.  Oh, hey, that reminds me, Geoff of teamtomez instagram fame was there, too.