BWUAHAHAHAHA

Throughout the year HRRT holds races in Schenectady's Central Park. In my very first race report I described the corner of the park where HRRT holds its races, however, I failed to mention that besides being a great place to mountain bike race, Schenectady Central Park is the crown jewel of Schenectady's parks. The Schenectady Common Council voted in 1913

to purchase the land that occupies the highest elevation point in the city for the present site of the park. Schenectady's Central Park was named after New York City's Central Park. Both Central Parks were designed by landscape architect Frederick Law Olmsted.  Schenectady Central Park features an acclaimed rose garden and Iroquois Lake. The movie Time Machine (2002) features Schenectady's Central Park in the ice skating scenes, standing in for New York City's Central Park – Iroquois Lake holds special significance to  me as I won my first cycling trophy racing on the ice of that lake.

Now, I'm using this late season Central Park race and the rest of the park's wooded paths, treed hill-sides and anything that remotely resembles a barrier as training for this year's grand finale of cyclo-cross, the USA Cycling Cyclo-Cross National Championships in Asheville North Carolina. The Championship race course is located on the grounds of Biltmore Estate – which landscape architect Frederick Law Olmsted also had a hand in designing. I'm hopeful that practicing in a park designed by the same person who designed the grounds that will host the championship race will provide me with a unique advantage, even though the championship course doesn't include a frozen lake (I think).

For the race I rode my singlespeed.  It turned out to be the right choice. Central Park's mountain bike trails are sufficiently twisty and undulating that I seldom find myself spun-out.  I spent the bulk of the race chasing a HRRT junior team racer riding a fat bike. Chasing the junior had put me within striking distance of the next guy on the last lap. He was also riding a fat bike and had worn himself down trying to maintain position. With  less than a mile to go he miss shifted and appeared to just give up. I wasn't officially racing him, never-the-less, I “sprinted” (spun like I was possessed) past him and onto the start-finish line as if I was in the running for the overall win. The HRRT Xmas Madness MTB race proved to be a really great post cyclo-cross season work-out.

Schenectady is not only known for its Central Park, it is also the birthplace of Spiderman’s nemesis, super-villain Doctor Octopus (Otto Gunther Octavius). Otto was a brilliant and respected nuclear physicist, atomic research consultant, inventor, and lecturer with a “master plan”. He designed a set of highly advanced tentacle arms controlled via a brain-computer interface to assist him with his research. The tentacle arms were capable of great strength and highly precise movement. Due to an accident the tentacle arms became fused to Otto's body. Just like Otto's tentacle arms became an extension of Otto's body, training in Central Park has helped make my Colnago World Cup cyclo-cross bike become an extension of my body. And just as Otto Octavius was quoted in Amazing Spider-Man Vol 1 681 “... The final stage is complete. All readings are good, gentlemen... It's time... Time to implement my master plan... my last master plan.”  – my final stages of training are coming to completion and it's time to put into practice all that I have learned. It's time to implement my master plan at nationals – BWUAHAHAHAHA