Fruita Fat Tire
THE FRUITA FAT TIRE FESTIVAL: Never let a Viking on a chopper get on your wheel...
The clunker criterium is a bit like the Olympics and Critical Mass meet the junk yard Wars and the Doo Dah parade. With cocktails. On a blind date.
Katerina was perfectly balanced on the handlebars. As long as we were on the straight-away. I was keeping an eye on the guy in the orange jump suit riding the fixed gear. When that guy jumped we wanted to get in his draft. Katarina’s feather boa was making it difficult to see, but how hard could that first right hander be?
Katerina and I found that on a little girl’s pink bmx bike, dressed like that, the first turn could be pretty hard.
Mark, Marla Streb's husband, riding the Fruita Clunker Criterium...
We had dropped the cowboy on the delivery cruiser back at the start. The fixed gear guy held his speed through the turn and was about to put down his cigarette and stomp on his pedals. Katerina and I counter-steered but we began to wobble off our line… must have been our high center of gravity.
That’s when the Viking sacked us.
The day before at our Luna Chix clinic, we had gone over stuff like cornering techniques, drop off tips, and speed wheelie instruction. I thought that Zak, our team mechanic, was paying attention to our clinic. Here we were, the Luna Chix, trying to keep 30 people interested in where their center of gravity is, and Zak went off on his own and landed a 20 foot jump with his weight too far forward. He said the wind crossed him up. Looking at the cracks on his Giro lid, and the separation in his shoulder I thought…
Okay, maybe sometimes, knowing what to do, even if you know how to do it, it can be pretty hard to actually do it.
The Luna Chix women's clinic- learning the moves...
Back at the crit, sprinting off the start line, we knew we should brake before the turn, not IN the turn. Exit Speed is more important than Entrance Speed, I had preached the day before. So as we approached, I stuck my foot out and dragged it on the pavement to scrub just a little speed. Katerina kept her chin up and looked through the exit of the turn. She kept her arms relaxed. I did the same. As we entered the turn, Katerina shifted on the handlebars so that her right butt cheek squished down on the back of my right hand. As much as I could, I tried to put my weight on my left pedal, sliding up on the banana seat over the bottom bracket to gain tire traction. But we miscalculated our line choice and slid out.
The Viking on the chopper T-boned us.
While lying there on the ground in a tangle, Katerina and I in our matching white disco pant suits, my husband riding around in the same outfit, the sumo in drag on the beach cruiser, Pocahontas on the beater and cowboy on the delivery bike all ripped past us. And I thought, that was a real rookie mistake. Everybody knows that Viking fur lint is a bitch to get off polyester.
The clunker criterium is a bit like the Olympics and Critical Mass meet the junk yard Wars and the Doo Dah parade. With cocktails. On a blind date.
Katerina was perfectly balanced on the handlebars. As long as we were on the straight-away. I was keeping an eye on the guy in the orange jump suit riding the fixed gear. When that guy jumped we wanted to get in his draft. Katarina’s feather boa was making it difficult to see, but how hard could that first right hander be?
Katerina and I found that on a little girl’s pink bmx bike, dressed like that, the first turn could be pretty hard.
Mark, Marla Streb's husband, riding the Fruita Clunker Criterium...
We had dropped the cowboy on the delivery cruiser back at the start. The fixed gear guy held his speed through the turn and was about to put down his cigarette and stomp on his pedals. Katerina and I counter-steered but we began to wobble off our line… must have been our high center of gravity.
That’s when the Viking sacked us.
The day before at our Luna Chix clinic, we had gone over stuff like cornering techniques, drop off tips, and speed wheelie instruction. I thought that Zak, our team mechanic, was paying attention to our clinic. Here we were, the Luna Chix, trying to keep 30 people interested in where their center of gravity is, and Zak went off on his own and landed a 20 foot jump with his weight too far forward. He said the wind crossed him up. Looking at the cracks on his Giro lid, and the separation in his shoulder I thought…
Okay, maybe sometimes, knowing what to do, even if you know how to do it, it can be pretty hard to actually do it.
The Luna Chix women's clinic- learning the moves...
Back at the crit, sprinting off the start line, we knew we should brake before the turn, not IN the turn. Exit Speed is more important than Entrance Speed, I had preached the day before. So as we approached, I stuck my foot out and dragged it on the pavement to scrub just a little speed. Katerina kept her chin up and looked through the exit of the turn. She kept her arms relaxed. I did the same. As we entered the turn, Katerina shifted on the handlebars so that her right butt cheek squished down on the back of my right hand. As much as I could, I tried to put my weight on my left pedal, sliding up on the banana seat over the bottom bracket to gain tire traction. But we miscalculated our line choice and slid out.
The Viking on the chopper T-boned us.
While lying there on the ground in a tangle, Katerina and I in our matching white disco pant suits, my husband riding around in the same outfit, the sumo in drag on the beach cruiser, Pocahontas on the beater and cowboy on the delivery bike all ripped past us. And I thought, that was a real rookie mistake. Everybody knows that Viking fur lint is a bitch to get off polyester.
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4 Comments:
Hey Marla,
It sounds like you had a little to much weight on the front end. You should have been on the gas, I mean pedaling, harder to shift the weight to the rear.
It works on the KTM.
P.S. a roll of Duct tape will take care of the viking fur. It works great on sheep wool. ;-)
Later.
Hi marla
I like to thank you for your MTB blog,and so thanks for Yor sweet motto,Im biker from Persia, we have alot of mountain location that ready for all biker who want good and memoral day by Bike.
later
From: Orange Jumpsuit.
I gots my own problems from that race. http://www.surlybikes.com/surlyblog.html
Oh, and I quit smoking.
Rock on Marla. Great to see you.
Sov
Hey marla, I heard your living here in Osos now, great to have ya. Well I'll probably see ya out on ridge trail or something.
later
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