Tough times are behind us and more seem to be ahead. If it weren't for them, one glorious report after another would be posted here, and in the meantime we'd be writing up roudtrips and training camps. Well, it is what it is. At least the skies are as clear as in Vinet's time.
The season goes by without the Tour, the Olympics, school and camping in low-cost housing at our resort races.
Frenk had other plans, too. When I asked him after Christmas how this year was going, his response was a geyser of optimism, ideas, plans and determination. This and That and That and Then That.
Eventually, like the others, he bought a drape for a few weeks to get the furthest Over There Toilet.
The first race where we met and were able to chat about how it was going was the Prokop-Pol Blinduro. Sounds like some exotic bug, but it's a normal "race for a few mates" as Prokop said years ago.
Well... they're from Prague, they have a lot of friends.
When Frenk passed me in the first stage, I began to suspect that these lines will not be a celebratory epic on another heartbreaking success in the category, but rather I'll have to draft the article a bit more soberly.
He slept badly, so he didn't ride like a panbu, but like a standard plodding participant who feels like he'll never hit the right line or braking point again, and was just this side of those who thought the "Sudets" were hard.
"I was at your scorpion on two. It was nicer than what came before it and, in fact, after it. Did it go smoothly today, or did it turn?"
"I didn't do well at all!"
"Why?"
"Because I'm asleep."
"?!"
"Yeah, just sleepy. Big bad. Even though I was in the creek before the race, it didn't help much."
"Frank, I'm getting old and a little senile, and some of life's sequences are falling out just like the day-to-day operational ones. Sometimes it's infuriating, other times I'm glad for it, but I still remember that in my younger days (I paused and took a deep breath with a moistened eye) at the teenage races, cold water before the race was the dumbest idea. Coach poked the funnel and immediately yelled a hole in my head. After that, I usually went through hell during the race, because just a clenched muscle is a clenched muscle. You know what I'm saying?"
"Hmm, it didn't help me much either. I was riding weird, not hitting the tracks, the corners, nothing."
Anyway, he was eighth on Saturday, which is still pretty decent.
On Sunday, I saw Frank in number one and it wasn't a pretty sight at all. I was a bit worried he was plugged in. He was leaning all over the place and trying to hurry to get down faster.
Then I saw him in three more places, but that's where Frenk looked like Frenk.
"May I ask another extremely original question? How's Frenk today?"
"I liked it better today, I rode more calmly. In one the spirit of the forest yelled 'slow down' at me, so I slowed down and calmed down. Then I was a little bit off until the last stage."
"Just down here, how did you ride the baker?"
"One more place up there. The interesting thing is that all the tracks that were new were good and the ones I had some snip with last year, I kept waiting for some of those Places and then they all doubled up. Here at the end of the last one I also thought I was out of it in your rocks and there was one more corner that I only remembered when I got stuck in it. Above it I'd already braked, thinking how I was going to sprinkle the finish and it was shit, well."
"Oh yeah, that's how it goes. And did you sleep well then?"
"Yeah yeah, I had a good head today."
Frenk eventually finished in a solid 9th spot.
Thank you.
-rt
