What’s “The Champ” been up to?
After missing the awards to head home early Sunday after my big victory I was in the navigators seat. I lead us through the backwoods of Georgia till we hit I 85 and by that time I was too keyed up to sleep for more than five minutes on the way home. I got home, said hello to The Pie and the dogs and started unloading the Dirty Little Box. I needed to get the everything put away pretty quick because we had a social worker coming over early in the week for another home visit. I put away most of the stinky stuff, changed the last deadbolt that needed replaced for our fire inspection, and I fixed the dishwasher that was leaking. I mentioned to my wife that I didn’t think Chris Eatough ever came home from a World’s victory and had to fix a dishwasher, but she wasn’t buying it. By the end of the night I was passed out on the couch at 9:00pm pedaling in my sleep.
I woke up early on Monday and struggled to stand up straight. I hit my blog real quick, and then it was off to work on my fixed gear with my monkey butt and raw meat hands reminding me of the weekend’s efforts. Thank goodness it was Columbus Day (what is Columbus Day? Some white guy found a bunch of natives living on an island near this “new world” and gets credit for finding it?) Things were slow enough all day for me to write up my race report in between runs and recant my war stories with a few friends. When I got home Rob from Badger Cycles called me bursting at the seams about the exciting news. He told me wanted to braze a little gold crown on the top of the Badger headbadge and write “24 Hour Solo SS World M & F’ing Champ” on the toptube. Luckily he was kidding, but he was pretty stoked that I won. He knows Cameron Chambers from around the way, and he knew a few things about him that I’m glad I didn’t know till after the race. I spent the rest of the night putting away all my stuff I didn’t get to the night before and generally straightening up my bike room before passing out on the couch again at 9:00pm.
Tuesday I woke up expecting a normal day at work. On my commute in I got my first doorprize in ten years of commuting/messengering. It was kinda anti-climactic, and I rode off unscathed after giving a telephone pole a big hug. Tommawicki-wicki-wicki came uptown with her video equipment to shoot a little post race footage for the “Dickymentary”. Some random kid asked me if he could take my picture, and the hot dog guy yelled “Nice job Dicky!” to me as I rolled by. I got off early in the afternoon to rush home to meet a social worker for a home visit, and later that evening I was sitting in an adoptive parents support meeting. It’s way too surreal to go from staying awake and riding for 24 hours to try and slide right back into reality. I had trouble sleeping all night, and I don’t think things are quite back to normal.
“I have trouble acting normal…”
Yesterday was just a normal day of work capped off with an after-work beer. Then I rushed home to start preparing The Boy’s bike for the short track series that starts this weekend. He has grown over half a foot since the winter series so I needed to make some adjustments; bars, stem, seat height, new tires, bigger gear, new chain…. I also had a friend over at the same time that I was working on The Boy’s bike so we could bleed his front brake. The evening was full and I was on the couch by 9:00pm again.
So now here I am at 2:00am. I have been coughing up the Georgia dust for two nights in a row now , and my normal sleep patterns are still off. The Pie just put me out of he bed to either take some cough syrup or hit the couch. Since I can’t sleep I am trying to make the most of this extra time, so I figured I’d knock this out. Tonight The Wonderboy, Big Worm, and whoever else is looking for a reason to go cavorting after work is heading to the “courier bar” for some adult beverages to celebrate the big victory.
That’s what it’s like to be champ. Well at least that’s what it’s like to be the 24 Hour SS (non-UCI) World Champ. The title is so long it’s just easier to not tell people sometimes. Normal humans have no idea what I am talking about, and it is more exhausting trying to explain it than it was actually attaining the title in the first place.
So here’s to an off-season filled with beer, riding, and big wheels.
“Here’s to good friends, tonight is kind of special
The beer you pour, should mean something more
So tonight, tonight
Let it be Lowenbrau.”
