Cyclocross HUD Warnings

"Your lines are driving me nuts," Shim said as he went around me during the first of five laps at the Oakley Night Cap Masters 45+ race this past Sunday morning.

I wasn't on my strong program that morning.

It wasn't that I didn't know it beforehand. During warmup, the Heads-Up Display (HUD) lit up with a pair of glowing amber warning lights:

It was true. The bad leg report was a direct result from the grueling Open Cat 1-2-3 race from the night before. At that race,  I took it out a wee bit on the spastic side (think Peter Boyd on crack) in order to hang with the alpha pack. Then, after say a quarter lap, reality set in. The next hour and nine minutes was a a wonderful experience of intermingled suffering and humiliation. Man, I can't get enough of this sport.

So anyway, that explained the CHECK LEGS warning on my HUD. The same can be said about the CHECK BALANCE alert. I was cornering for crap at the start of the race. That was mostly due to lingering doubt from a couple sloppy, fatigue-induced wipeouts from the night before. With my confidence still reeling Sunday morning, I felt slightly off-kilter on the bike and took to cornering cautiously. As a result, my turns were slow and with bad lines. This opened up gaps between me and the dude ahead of me, requiring some effort to catch back on. This was so evident that my good buddy and teammate, Shim, couldn't keep his cake hole shut about my crappy turning skills. After he mentioned it for the third or fourth time, I finally just gave in and let him go by.

I followed his wheel from there. Because he rides good lines, my cornering improved rapidly. The CHECK BALANCE light turned off shortly after. And though we had lost contact with the leader of the race, we had a nice gap between us and fourth place. Rather than try to catch back on, we rode a smart tempo around threshold for the remainder of the race. My legs were still fatigued. The wet course and heat didn't make it any easier. As a result, the CHECK LEGS* alert remained lit throughout the remainder of the race. Still, Sunday's race was more enjoyable than the night before. Finishing on the podium helped.

*CHECK LEGS finally cycled itself off during Monday afternoon's taco recovery spin.

Well that's all for today.  Thanks for reading and Happy Friday.