Better late than never: Oxbow Race Report

(So, I had to hijack another machine to make this posting. My computer and Blogger do not always get along very well when it comes to uploading images. That's why it's late ... but hopefully worth the wait.)

Team Hub stormed the race with the following placings: A2 -- Clayton Summit 6th; A3 -- Paul McKinney 5th & Joel Cahalan 7th; B1 -- John Fleck 7th & Sean Nelson 12th. We then infiltrated Oxbow Park for highly sensitive, covert ops and recon maneuvers. These mostly involved figuring out where Paul hid the cooler.


Cooler secured and Belgians in hand, we got down to business. Paul may have been the only one among us to claim a prize (King of the Mountain, Lap 1, A Race) but that still didn't entitle him to derailing our team meeting with a discourse on the merits of raising yak for the wool to produce our totally-pimp and ultra-unique new line of Hub jerseys. No more Stella, for you, Stan. (But a nice logo shot nonetheless.)



The aftermath. This is a little shot I like to call "Hubbo Camp." Bikes, dead soldiers and energy goo strewn about. Must be about time to go home. Wait -- did we ever have the "team meeting"?! I vote our 2008 jerseys should say "Fueled by Anarchy."



Now, it wouldn't be a Belgian-style classic if there wasn't at least one freak in the crowd. Think of all the Belgian race footage you've seen -- fans in body paint, cross dressers, drunken frivolity. Case in point -- Andy Skiles. I've seen photos of Skiles dressed in Cat 6 kit wearing a circa '89 Steven Tyler wig. That explains a lot. On this beautiful spring day, Andy was just hanging out being himself. He's a huge Maiden fan and he wants you to know it. That's Wit to the left of Andy. Not sure, but that facial expression of Wit's would seem to say, "I've had enough. I don't want to be seen with this guy anymore." Cut out of the picture is young Andrew Pierre who entered and summarily won the B Race -- his first road race. If he wasn't such a nice guy, I'd hate him. He made the Oxenburg look like a normal part of a Sunday morning cafe ride. I don't think he broke a sweat. We need him for Team Hub. Well, and Wit, too. And, hell, Skiles, we'll even sign you up. (As long as you wear the wig.)


Who had any clue that Clayton is so talented? I mean, not only can the guy spank you up a hill, stop at the top and tell you what obscure herbal supplements you should be taking to improve performance, but he's also a dead aim with a banana peel. This shot was landed out Joel's passenger window at about 65mph. Bullseye on Paul's windshield wiper. Fortunately Paul did not veer off the road and roll his truck. That would have made for a bummer ending to an awesome start of the road season.

Rumor has it we'll be in full-force at Ken Woods this coming weekend. I haven't told the team yet, but I think we have a line on the Dallas Cowboy cheerleaders to come and root for Team Hub. Unfortunately, it's the line-up from the 1976 season, but they're still pretty hot.

Flecker