Saturday, October 1, 2011

I don't know how he sits down

By now you've probably seen the video of Danny Hart's world championship-winning DH run. Just in case you haven't:



The riding is in a league all its own. To corner like that in those conditions is remarkable. The commentary, though, is at least as entertaining. The last statement of the video certainly describes Danny, but it also describes someone else I know.

The other day, I ran into Matt B. at the bike shop. We were both picking up some odds and ends for our 'cross bikes and chatted a bit about the upcoming season. It somehow came up that when we race 35A, neither of us races to win simply because that's not a realistic expectation. Instead, we race not to be last. In Matt's case, however, that was his objective before he lost his leg to cancer.

At UTCX #1 today, Matt lined up in the 35A field. If you're thinking of pinning on a C flight number for a cross race, take a good, long look in the mirror and think about if that's where you really belong.

In Matt's case, to quote the World Championship announcer, "I don't know how he sits down with balls that big."

6 comments:

  1. You had a great race today...far from last place. Nice work. And Matt, well I have nothing but respect for that guy. The dude can ride fast.

    ReplyDelete
  2. I had to watch that on mute. lol That route would take me 20 minutes to finish. And that would be a fast day.

    ReplyDelete
  3. Contrary to any rumors being spread by skibikejunkie about the alleged size of certain parts of my anatomy, i have to attribute my ability to pass and then hold him off when he was catching me on the last lap to my K-edge chain catcher which kept my chain right where it needed to be when skibikejunkie had to jump off and fix his.

    ReplyDelete
  4. I didn't know who was a factor and who wasn't. Fortunately Sam has been racing these guys for a few years now and could point out some of the different riders as we saw them riding around town, but i was still dealing with the big unknown factor. And then just getting antsy.
    One day one deal

    ReplyDelete