The Weekend Mother Nature Stole From Us

The weekend began with such high hopes: Two days, two races and some harrowing conditions. Unfortunately the conditions turned out to be more harrowing than the race organizers deemed safe. Now, anyone who has raced in the NCNCA knows that Velo Promo, as an organizing body, doesn’t offer many frills, and they certainly aren’t keen on cancelling races. They embrace a more Spartan attitude towards the racing of the bicycle. And I’m not just talking about the rough-hewn shirts they hand out as prizes for winning and placing in some of the toughest races on the calendar.

So I suppose somewhere deep down inside, I thank them for having had the decency to cancel a race due to snow on the roads (particularly, as I heard it, on the descents). But after a 3 hour drive through the night, hearing your race has been cancelled, whatever the reasons may have been, is a bitter pill to swallow. Further meteorological research would soon support their decision, as well as confirm, that a giant green and yellow mass with pockets of blue and purple (one of them right above our motel) had engulfed the entire state of California, and wasn’t going anywhere until after the weekend.

I hated that giant green and yellow mass, especially its pockets of blue and purple.

So we did what any adventure seekers would do: opened up a map and set about planning a supplementary ride for the next morning…