Goddard Park attracts thousands of visitors each year
as Rhode Island’s most popular Metropolitan Park. The park offers a beautiful
natural environment with spacious lawns, fields, and forested areas with a
variety of trees from all over the world, including 62 deciduous and 19
evergreen species all neatly wrapped in blue vinyl tape. Visitors can make use
of a golf course, an equestrian show area, 18 miles of bridle trails, 355 picnic
tables, 11 game fields, a performing arts center and a beach for weddings,
concerts, picnics and special events – such as cyclocross racing.
Goddard Memorial State Park, home of the NBX Grand Prix
of Cyclocross, goes back to the early settlement of Warwick, a Rhode Island city
located on the Narragansett Bay. Founded in 1642, Warwick has witnessed
major events in American history. In 1772, Warwick was the scene for the first
violent act against the Crown in what was to be called the Gaspée Affair.
Local patriots mooned and then boarded HMS Gaspée, a revenue cutter
(an armed enforcement
service vessel) charged
with enforcing the Stamp Act 1765 and Townshend Acts in Narragansett Bay and
spilled the first blood of the American Revolution when the
commanding officer of the Gaspée, took a shot to his crotch. Getting
a shot to your crotch in Goddard Memorial State Park these days equates to missing
the saddle on a superman style remount.
I flatted both days – I never flat. Some blame the
roots. I’m a mountain biker I know how to handle roots. I ride roots so well
that I took super sketchy lines that no normal person would ever attempt. I ride
roots so well that I passed two other riders in a turn by hugging a tree and popping
off its raised root collar to air the mud hole. I’m so good at roots that I was
the extremely rare rider to take the right, high and dry line that just happen
to lie on the far side of some sick surface roots. A post-race wheel autopsy
confirmed my suspicion. The tube had a tiny single circular puncture. Saturday’s
flat was the curse of the race predictor. I was supposed to finish 32nd,
my flat, pit stop and wheel change pretty much put me right on target.
Sunday’s
flat was realized, believe it or not, at the exact location as Saturday’s flat,
at the top of the stairs run-up three-quarters way though the lap; again on my
last lap. I don’t like curses. I decided to assess my bikes handling (of course
it handled fine, it’s a Colnago World Cup)as I raced toward the pit and if the Michelin
Mud 2 bead stayed locked to my Stan’s Iron Cross wheel; I would take my chances
and finish on the flat. I've had quite a bit of experience riding on flat tires.
More than once I've been bit by a rattler (by the way, this flat was the result
of a snake bite) while cruising down the back side of Sleeping Beauty on the
East side of Lake George, and just road it flat to the bottom. The tire was
still on the rim as I came up on the pit and I went for it. Race Predictor had
me finishing 31st in Sundays race. I crushed the curse by 9 spots.
Take that Race Predictor.
You're probably thinking, “you destroyed an Iron Cross
wheel for 9 spots!” Wrong. The wheel stayed true, the tire stayed locked in
place, there’s not a mark on the Iron Cross. It was the curse that took a shot
to the crotch. Thanks Stan.
