At the end of another week of horrific leg destroying training, there is finally some action happening in the Global hub that is photo and word worthy for the Global Dirty Audience. First up today, the OCBC Crit. A race in Singapore! Wow… Imagine that, about as rare as an honest referendum in the Crimea right? So surely I would be there racing it! All those miles, good form, all in right?

No… Well, listen up race organisers – $200 plus $30 for a licence for a 45 minute race is not realistic. Forget I am a hobo for a moment, but WTF? Perhaps that’s why the fields looked skinnier than the Olsen twins after Lance A finished dropping a threshold session on them. Yeah, you know it. Its also a convenient excuse for me given how much I loathe Crits. Lets do a quick flash back to 2012 when I last did it… Dropped like a cunt and then a flat tub pretty much summed up a night where I was sculling Haterade in the wet. It was so shit the Hawk decided to poke his tongue out the whole way around:

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Bad helmet… Clown shoes… Clashing gloves and NO beard, no wonder it was a fucking mess. Call me James Morrison. Keeping my eyes closed also not helpful

But, a couple of the boys were hard enough to get amongst the knife fight and unsurprisingly one was James Bond and the other just your run of the mill Australian Spy. First up it was Ice Station Zebra taking on the Masters grade, a solo asset sent into a heavily team dominated landscape.

Unfortunately in a rather horrifying miscommunication episode on par with the Malaysian Transport Minister daily briefings, us yelling “Get off the fucking front” was translated into “Burn those fucking cunts” by Ice Station Zebra. Being a man who knows how to follow orders with extreme prejudice, he went about his work with a pair of pliers and a blow torch:

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Deploy the Zebra! Even the lead Moto was under the pump

However, as opposed to being the Day of the Zebra, the theme of the evening was the ‘Day of the Hamburglars’, with this being a common outcome across both races. With a council worker up the road, ISZ was forced into a solo chance, occasionally resorting to a slow BJ to try and make an impression, but it just wasn’t fast enough to get the result the Zebra was looking for. My main homeboy Hussien from T3 also helping out with the chase:

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I give you the best deal bro!

Still, it was good to see Uncle Phil back in town, here he is bored as fuck and giving me a nervous wave after I so gracefully screamed out to him… He also took the chance to remind me that his DN restraining order meant I had to stay 50 metres away at all times. How the fuck was I to know he wasn’t a hugger?

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I will bank it as a wave… He’s actually saying “That’s fucking far enough”

With Zebra done and dusted it was the Spy’s turn to have a crack in the Open race, where given how civil it was lining up, made me instantly regretful I wasn’t out there racing as well. Roberto had specifically trained less recently to make sure that he was going to bank maximum suffering for his 200 pingas, stoked:

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“Fuck I hope I cramp up”

Footnote – Those Boardman dudes all went out the assssss on the first lap. Good endorsement. Full credit to the Spy, he knows how to massacre himself in ways I’ve never seen before. I suspect part of his central nervous system is missing, or he just loves the burn of crit racing on no training. Every lap of the Open race I had the sting in the back of my neck, that’s “you should be out there”, fucking with me. I would have loved to have been involved with potentially chasing down the Hamburglar. Respect for staying strong in the chase group Roberto:

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“Get a move on council worker, I need to get this cramp really firing”

There is no question if I had lined up it would have rained, so probably good for everyone else that I resorted to semi marginal photo taking and side line abuse. Not surprisingly, the Open race was taken out by another Hamburglar, who just for the sake of making sure all the awards are dished out, also takes home the COTD award for good measure. Just because we need to keep consistency really… And he’s a cunt.

I was planning on sticking around for the PRO race, but read the tea leaves correctly and decided to bail when the Welsh Hooligans arrived on the scene – Armed with hairy legs, no socks, de rigueur polo shirt and giving the forks to anyone that questioned his Kebab selection:

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“You wanna fooking go too? Coont, I’ll give you a Kebab hat if you don’t watch yourself”

Zebra looks on, weighing up if he should join his boyo and start to smash the place up… 98% chance they came from the same village. So the evening had a couple of lessons to be digested:

  • Race organisers – Drop the fees, get the fields bigger and everyone wins
  • Me – Don’t be a tight cunt and let your team mates go into battle without helping them out
  • Hamburglars – Shame on you, it’s never cool beating up the little kids and stealing their happy meals. Cycling Karma awaits you…
  • The Lads – Full credit to the boys for getting out there and giving it death for the Team, nice work to ISZ and Roberto for having a massive crack.

As for the PRO action? Well… Now, that IS a scoop, but I have learnt my lesson and need to ration out my material, so as a teaser, here is tomorrow’s story as a sneak preview:

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“Why is there some freaky bearded guy trying to take photos of me on his iPhone whilst pretending not to?”

I know… Sunday can’t come soon enough right?! Its more exciting than jamming a cat in your back pack and flying to Australia!

 

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