Lower Allen Classic

Raced in PA this past weekend. Worst performance and feeling so far this season. I'll file my major gripes quickly and move on to more positive notes. The course was NOT well suited to my riding style. No power sections. Not much climbing to speak of. Instead, LOTS of technical mumbo-jumbo. Lots of off-camber. Lots of sand and mulch. Not my cup o' tea. Good course for my cohorts, as Evan and Matt each logged second place finishes. Here's Evan at the finish. Someone has been working on their finish line celebration!!


Congrats to those fellers. In addition to the course conditions, the race organization pretty well sucked. I'm usually the guy to praise the organizers for putting on such a wonderful show. Can't say the same 'bout this one. For starters, the course was taped in an odd way. For me, it was extremely tough to follow the course. Beyond that, there wasn't a lap counter at the start/finish and the announcers never announced 'One lap to go.' All this added up to a piss-poor performance. I rolled across 11th out of 49. Blech. Further, Evan and Matt had to wait 3.5 hours to collect their winnings.

On the food front, we stopped at Friendly's on the way home. Holy crap!! What a dump. I've been pushing Evan to have a famous Fribble for over a year (since the trip to Philly two Junes ago). Believe it or not, he was too full after his 'entree' to wash it all down with a Fribble. I've never been so disappointed in my life!!! This Friendly's location smelled like cat urine. We gorged ourselves on fries and fried sandwiches. That's all I can stand to say about the experience.

On a more civilized note, Saturday night found me, SVR, D, and S at Bistrot du Coin. I'd been jonesing for the place for a while and, as usual, it didn't disappoint. Drew and I split mussels with cream and curry sauce, fries, creamed spinach, and escargot. We also each had a green salad. It was all top-notch. We hadn't ever tried the spinach. It was rich and creamy and spinach-y and comforting. I'll keep it on the top of the list for next time. All else was fatty and mmmm. Maybe D can send a photo of the bottle of wine we had. It was an excellent, excellent French wine.

Last night, SVR and I cooked up one heck of a number. We made butternut squash gnocchi from scratch. No photo evidence. Drizzled it with a butter and sage sauce. Ranks among the best at-home creations for us. We served it with a good spring greens (it's spring somewhere, right?) salad. On a more local note, the tomatoes were locally grown. For dessert...homemade banana bread. We used the recipe from the New Best Recipe cookbook. Served it up with some ice cream. I think E&K were content to be our guests last night.

And so we're up-to-date.

I hope to get some training guidance from Josef in the coming days. Gonna dive into a 'B' race this Sunday. From what I hear, the competition down 'round Richmond ain't as tough. We'll see about that.