Win a T-Shirt!

I didn't race my bike this weekend, so that was weird.  Instead, I went up to Spokane to play Hoopfest with the traditional team.  For those of you not in the know, that would be Andrea, Spring, Alex, and myself.

Andrea chose our uniforms.  Alex opted for the mansierre.

Hoopfest is insane.  It's the world's largest 3 on 3 basketball tournament, with roughly 28,000 players this year.  Obviously not everybody plays in the same bracket.  It's divided into 16 team brackets.  This is where the strategy starts.  It's all about strategy.  The goal is to get into the bracket that will give you the best shot of winning a t-shirt.  They determine the brackets based on two things: the height of your tallest player, and your ability level.  As a result, I am listed every year as 5'7".  I've never actually played a team that was honest about their height though.  Spring decided that we'd actually played basketball before this time, and I was a little worried for a while that we would be playing on Center Court.  We got there and found that we were in the same bracket as several of the teams we played last year.  We got 2nd place last year and won a t-shirt.

We lost our first game because there was one guy that was ridiculously good.  We play games to either 25 minutes or 20 points, whichever comes first and I believe he scored 17 of the 20.  Now for more strategy.  The brackets are true double elimination, so if you lose the first game you have to win 7 straight to get back to the championships and win a t-shirt.  A simpler route to t-shirtdom is to just lose the 2nd game and go to the consolation bracket.  You only have to win two games then to become the Loser Kings.  So we went into the second game with every intention of losing.  We would play hard until we got within two points of taking the lead, then we would stall, make bad passes and generally help the other team out.  Alex scored to bring us within one and we had to play overtime.  We didn't shoot at all in the overtime, and every time the other team shot, we would stand there and let them rebound.  They didn't get the strategy of losing apparently since they were diving for loose balls and actually trying.  They managed to beat us, much to our relief.

The first consolation game was pretty easy.  I think they genuinely tried to win the first two games and failed.  We weren't playing particularly well, but we still won.  We were one game away from a t-shirt!  The team we would be playing wasn't very good, but they were wide.  Our court monitor made everybody shake hands before games and everybody was way too nice for the first three games.  It didn't feel like the usual hoopfest, where games tend to resemble a street fight with a hoop in the background.  Then I came down with an offensive rebound, secured the ball, and turned to look for an outlet.  This is where the tone of the game changed.  As I turned, my elbow connected with a player's nose.  I don't have an actual photo, so here's a visual approximation:

He was sure that I did it on purpose and was the biggest jerk in the world.  He yelled at me as he walked off the court.  Let me note right now that I didn't just turn around and take the easy basket that I had every right to take.  I made sure he was alright and we checked it back in.  They started playing a little rougher after that.  Here's some more Hoopfest strategy!  Fouls are called by the player that is fouled, so there is a line to toe. If you call too much, the other team tends to get angry and start "actually fouling."  This is how Andrea got kicked out of a game a few years back and my dad nearly got thrown all the way out of Hoopfest.  If you call too little, the other team tends to take advantage and plays rough.  It's a delicate balance that we managed to keep for the first three games.  We apparently missed our target in this game.  They started beating up on us and using all their size.  I was able to use my bike riding legs to hold my own in the post, but they would still grab at me and weren't afraid to push me over.  At one point, one of their players and I fought over a ball, and I called a foul because he tackled me.  Here's a visual of that player:

He jumped in my face and said "I'm not afraid of you!"  Good work, Captain Courage!  I'm 160 pounds, I'm wearing a women's shirt, and I shave my legs.  Most middle school girls could beat me up.  I couldn't back down though, so I puffed up my chest and held my ground.  Had he actually used his ogre-ness, I probably would have run away crying.  I went and shot my free throw, missed, and went back to brawling under the hoop.  Shrek would go on to body slam me and sit on me, as well as tackling Alex and threatening to elbow the girls.  The game went into overtime, they nearly won off of cheap fouls, but they couldn't make a free throw because they weren't very good at shooting.  I wound up hitting a two pointer off the backboard to end the game and WE WON A T-SHIRT!

LOSER KINGS 2011!

The guy that I elbowed told me that he would buy us t-shirts because he was very rich and I was too mean to him.  A few minutes later, he came up to us and reminded us that he was in fact very rich and that it would be "different next year" if we played again.  I think that means that he was going to steal our eggs and we would have to slingshot ourselves at his poorly made shelters.

Balancing Act

I'm going to skip over the first stages and get to the interesting stuff for the sake of me not boring you/me not going on a tirade over what constitutes a "real mechanical."  Suffice it to say that the first couple days hadn't gone as well as planned, and left me with a good deal of rage to get me through Stage 4.  The team hadn't done as well as we'd have liked, so we decided to take a chance today and hopefully do something big.  On the 102 mile, 7,000+ vertical last stage, there was ample opportunity for big.  The plan was to get in the early move with at least two of us.  I decided that the end of the neutral rollout was sufficiently early, and rolled away.  I was off for about 10 seconds before I glanced back and saw blue and white coming across to me.  It was Ben and an Audi rider.  Excelllent...

They came across and one of them looked back and said "there's 3 more coming."  So I look back and see a couple jerseys and another Bob's kit coming at me.  We got the whole team in the break!  PARTY TIME!  EXCELLENT!

We were rolling now.  It was a 6 man break with a big task ahead of us.  We had to hold off the field for the next 85 miles, then climb Dooley.  This would definitely qualify as big if we pulled it off.  After about 15 miles, the Audi guy looked over at us and said something about feeling terrible, and drifted off.  The break was down to 5 hardmen.  So we rolled for another 15 when I heard a "psssssssss."  One of the other guys had flatted.  4 hardmen.  We kept going, and were doing quite well for a long time.  We got the gap up to about 6:20 at one point.  I found out after the race that the peloton was told 10:00 and they started working harder. Thanks again officials!  Anyways... we made it over the first three climbs with a three minute gap.  This was where things got a little tricky.  Ben was our GC hope, so I didn't want him driving the break.  Would the three of us be strong enough to keep the gap up without him?  What if the Non-Bob noticed Ben sitting on and decided to sit on as well?  Then it would just be Steve and me and he was looking strong so he could win if he didn't work.  What if Ben cracks on the climb?  Steve and I weren't in any condition to fight on the climb, so I determined the last question was irrelevant.  I decided that if the other guy was pulling, Ben could choose to pull if he wanted.  I started pulling as hard as I could on the pre-Dooley flats.  The Non-Bob would tell me to slow up as I was gapping my teammates.  Ben told me at that point that he wasn't feeling good.  Not excellent.  I sent him to the back of the break and told him not to pull through again.  At about mile 85, the Non-Bob threw my reading of him all out of whack when he said to me "I'm going to back off a bit."  3 Bob's hardmen.  Steve and I drove it to the bottom of Dooley and sent Ben off the front with some cheers and a 3 and a half minute gap.  I was confident that Ben would fight his brains out and hold off the field.  My personal victory would be to stay upright on the climb.  I had done my duty and just wanted to get done with the stage.  I wasn't riding very fast, but Elliot from team Look! Save A Life went by me like he was riding a motorcycle.  That dude is a freak.  He started racing this year and has dominated every big stage race he's been in.  I looked over at him and managed to mumble "dammit Elliot" at him.  He responded with a cheery "Come on Brian, let's go!"  He was going to catch Steve and Ben and our break was going to be in vein.  Ben really needed to fight and stay on Elliot's wheel.  I kept pushing up the hill.  Several riders passed me and congratulated the team for riding a great race and putting everybody up against the ropes for 90 miles.  Eventually, I found a girl that was riding at the right pace for me and went the rest of the way up with her.   I crossed the line and immediately asked what happened ahead of me.  Ben's dad gave the news that Ben had been caught by 13 riders.  Disappointing, but we had taken a risk and it nearly worked to perfection.  I feel like having an entire team coming to the base of the hill alone might be a first in Elkhorn history.  We did everything we could to win the race and some days it's not in the cards, but we still had to give it our best.

P.S.  The fields at Elkhorn were way smaller than last year.  It was just as cool of a race as last year, and will be just as cool again next year, so everybody should do it.