Paris-Ancaster

Sunday was my own Version of Paris-Roubaix, or more precisely Paris-Ancaster.  60k mix of road/off-road riding from Paris, ON to Ancaster, ON.  Most everybody was on cross bikes or fat tires.  Seeing as how I have 700c rims on my mtb, I put a set of cross tires on.  Perfect set-up.  1400!! racers registered.  I was in the first wave of 400, corraled up like a group of wild mustangs hungry to charge out of the gates.  They let us out onto the road and quickly we hit a dirt carriage road.  
Super narrow, it's hard to move up in a pack of 100 riders, how the hell do you do it with 400 other guys.  I got as close to the front as I could.  After about 10k we hit a 90 degree right, right onto a farmers field, total chaos, lost about 50 spots as everyone had to shoulder the bikes up the hill, and I hate running, especially with a bike.  Thru the field and onto the roads, it started to split up here.  I was giving it everything to make contact but the early pace whipped my legs and my stomach was grumbling.  After lots of mud and roads I put out a huge charge at the 30k point straight down an elevated railroad bed for about 10k, I made a huge move and gained tons of ground ala Van Petegem on the cobbles... I got into a group of 10 guys and another guy and myself were swapping pulls, I got mad  and biatch slapped em verbally to get working and we started to gain on all the groups in front of us.  

Soon a tandem came by and myself and another jumped on the wheels and we were flying away from our group and I was running out of gearing.  Ugh oh, my stomach was hurting again.  Headed down this huge mudslide where you had to run, and stomach got worse, time to emulate Bob Roll, (think switzerland, family picnic...anyone getting the picture ;)  After a 10 minute time out somewhere in the woods I lost 70 spots or so, jumped back on the bike and groveled my way to the finish hoping nothin worse would happen.  

Ended up 120th 21 minutes back on the leaders...

I made it home just in time to catch the 2nd half of Paris-Roubaix. Poor Hincapie, man does that guy have zero luck in that race. At least he has a hot wife to comfort him while he nurses his injury back.

So, seeing as how 2-4 were disqualified for crossing the tracks with the gates down, why wasn't Boonen and the 2nd chase group? There gates were down also...

~J