Gimp with a camera

I did something I'm not used to on Saturday. After injuring my leg during a warm-up lap, I actually exercised the good judgement to scratch from the "Last Man Standing" race at Goose Lake.

I must be getting wiser with age, because a couple of years ago, I would have raced anyway. These days, the prospect of limping for a week is less appealing than riding in a race I have no chance of winning. I had my camera, so I dumped my bike and decided to serve as race photographer.

The sky was clear and the air brisk—somewhere in single digits. As usual, every lap brought racers off the lake and then back onto it by running them over the beach. The beach sand is always the most heinous part of a lap, in my opinion, but mixed with six inches of dry snow it was guaranteed to deal out a dose of misery every time the racers passed through it.

The fixie crowd had to run through that crap like they were in a cyclocross race. Even the guys on regular mountain bikes were fish-tailing through it, and many of them were walking through before the race ended.

By that point, I was sittin' in the snow and shootin' pictures with one hand while I drank a beer with the other.

Pretty good work if you can get it.