Thursdays are for Thirsty

Over the hump, into the downhill side of the week, hit the weekend with a little zip in your step.  It's Pantani week, and Sunday at 10 AM the mayhem goes live. 

Well, around 10 AM that is.  Likely a few minutes after. To be perfectly concise, whenever Quadsworth is done stretching his gigantic, creamy hamstrings, we will roll.  And if you're into all of that on the weekends, then Thursdays are for thirsty.  Hydrate, bitches. 

Also, given that it's Thursday, it's safe to say that the weather forecast for Sunday is at least 25% accurate by now, and she's showing 49 and sunshine.  Not a bad day to go ride in the mountains. Not a bad weekend to not be in New England. 

the little fish that could cripple Boston but has little to no relevance down thisaway.

So then, the official Pantani Course Weather forecast: A few flurries tonight, some rain tomorrow to soak it in proper, sunshine Saturday, and pain on Sunday.  Dress accordingly.


And as long as we're making last minute preparations, let me post up those maps again.

Never a bad idea to print those, put them in a waterproof container of some kind so they won't be rendered soppy and useless by your sweat and tears.  Although I've had some feedback that there's a turn somewhere around Nortonsville that isn't accounted for on the queue sheet, in which case just point it downstream to where civilization usually exists and hope for the best. 

Also important at this, the 11th hour, it's a good time to change your bike set up.  Maybe even wait until Saturday for that.  But a really last-minute, hurried attempt to a) change your wheels and cranks b) pull a proper cross bike together c) rethink gearing and install new cables and housing, etc is always, always the right call.  In fact, what the hell, Shawn owns a bike shop, and the race starts in his yard.  Might as well just show up 15 minutes early with a box full of shambled parts and have him put it together for you.  No time like the present. 


As for me, it's with a heavy heart that I have to say this is the first Pantani ride in quite some time that Betty White won't be making it around the course.  No indeed, Betty's days out there at the top of Brokenback are behind her, and she's been given a soft desk job with the occasional responsibility to pull the kiddie trailer around the block.  What can I say - even the Mona Lisa's falling apart. 
 
Madonna, on the other hand, is lean, mean, and more ripped now than she was in her, ummm, prime?
 



Steel is real scary

That's about all I've got for you.  I'd summarize in some way, but I didn't really have that much to say in the first place anyway.  Show up before 10 AM, dress warm, pack a lunch.  The rest is up to Pantani.  

 "Looking back, there was always a fatalism in Marco's riding. He won or lost through foolish, inspired deeds with little sense of strategic calculation. The tangible holding-at-bay of the night in those unforgettable late-afternoon victories at Montecampione and Les Deux Alpes was always there. For others, stage-racing has always meant weighing up the potential of stages to come, and riding accordingly - riding, it might be said, in the future tense. Marco had no future tense. His style, in life, like his cocaine use and death, was lyrical, not narrative - a losing himself in time - and, in time (or outside it), the forces that had allowed him to live, consumed him as they consume us all." - Matt Rendell, The Death of Marco Pantani



 Up, up, up.