I raced my bicycle on both days of this past weekend. Two races, two crashes—and yet I would chalk it up as one of the better weekends of 2009 to-date.
I woke early on Saturday morning after a few hours of restless sleep and made the trip to Greenbush, WI with Jessie, Brian, and Tyler. I must note that I really have come to enjoy car trips of this nature. The drives to and from North Carolina over the past two years were considerably longer, but on both occasions we listened to great music and had great conversation the entire way; and our comparatively short trip on Saturday deviated little from that standard.
On arrival, I registered, dressed, and sat ready at the Start line. The race then started and—for me—abruptly ended twenty or so minutes later when I locked my front wheel with another rider's skewer/rear derailleur, crashed, and flatted my front tire. I hitched a ride back with a cyclist from Milwaukee who coincidentally knows one of my best friends from high school. After cleaning up my scrapes and changing out of my cycling garb, I enjoyed the rest of the day getting sunburned and watching the rest of the races.
Sunday brought cool weather and cloudy skies, but I headed to the Capitol Square nonetheless to ride in that day's criterium. From what I recall, the race went fairly uneventfully. I managed to crash going around a corner about two-thirds of the way through, but was able to get up and finish the race. Consequently, though, my front wheel is quite out of true, and I have yet to inspect anything else.
I'm glad I decided to race, though I have to admit that after the short-lived race on Saturday, I questioned my decision to partake in what seemed like such a pointless sport at the time. However, road rash and scrapes will heal. It was a good weekend.
Cycling aside, baseball has been on my mind in ever-increasing quantities as of late, as is usual when the days about which I last wrote roll around*. Many of my favorite memories took place on a baseball diamond.
Fort Atkinson, WI is home to, perhaps, the most beautiful ballpark in Wisconsin. There's an old wooden grandstand directly behind home plate, and on either foul line, bleachers sit close to the dugouts. There are no fences beyond the foul-lines, and not a hundred feet from the Left Field foul line, a local family—who later comes into the story—sits in lawn chairs watching, in my memory, every game played.
The infield is beautiful. Through some connection, the city is able to use the same dirt mixture used in Major League ballparks, and they keep it in pristine condition. It feels brash and criminally wrong to sully the freshly-dragged infield dirt, or to step on a newly-chalked foul line.
The outfield fares just as well, with smartly-clipped grass and a sturdy fence marking the end of the park. Lights shoot up from the wall in four places, and a standard scoreboard sits in the left-center Power Alley.
I think back to playing Left Field here when I was nearly fifteen. Several families and other spectators sit underneath massive oak trees just beyond the foul line. One family in particular was notorious for heckling anyone in Left Field, and so for much of the game, I endured comments about my mother, my poor eyesight, my poor judgment, and my lousy team.
This is baseball as it should be. Played in the afternoons and early evenings during the heart of the summer months, with spectators ambling up to the fence with a beer in one hand and a hot dog in the other; and with the local families who sit under big oak trees to enjoy lazy summer afternoons and to heckle the opposing Left Fielder.
