Draft Animals by Phil Gaimon

Author:Phil Gaimon
Language: eng
Format: mobi
Publisher: Penguin Publishing Group
Published: 2017-10-10T00:00:00+00:00

Bottle duty in Colorado.

My eyes opened when officials finally decided to neutralize us for safety, but since race radios were banned at smaller races that year, they weren’t able to communicate their decision until we’d reached the pavement at the bottom of the descent.* Everyone stopped, and our mechanic ran out from the car to see if we needed anything. Half-frozen, blind, covered in mud, with throbbing legs, I asked if he had any spare glasses to replace the ones I’d lost.

“Nah, dude, I don’t. But if it makes you feel better, you look really badass.”

I sighed. I’ve never felt worse in my life. Why the hell would I care how I look? And then I glanced around, hoping there was a photographer nearby.

As officials tried to figure out what to do, riders planned a strike. We’d ride slowly to the finish—a protest against—well, I don’t know—but somebody had screwed up big time to let us race that ridiculous dirt descent and then stop the race 5k from the finish. Robbie Hunter heard the rumor and emerged from the team car, yelling that we will not fucking protest if we want to keep our jobs. Robbie had only retired from racing a year before, so you’d think he’d agree that our safety would outweigh results and sponsor interests, but it was a good finish for Howes and we needed a win.

There was one guy from the breakaway still ahead before officials stopped us, so they gave him a two-and-a-half-minute lead when the race restarted. We could see him in the distance as we started the last climb, losing time, but awfully far away. Tom started to unzip his vest, so I rode up to him.

“Here, I’ll take that back to the car for you,” I said.

“No! We need you at the front!” he barked, tossing a $140 vest into the grass on the side of the road.

For eight years, I’d raced for teams that gave me one vest if I was lucky. On Garmin-Sharp, we each got a whole box of vests in January, along with five types of gloves, ten sets each of arm, leg, and knee warmers, and something like thirty jerseys. And if that wasn’t enough, they had a box of spare everything in the bus. I was disgusted that Tom could be so wasteful, but I threw mine, too, just for the novelty.* It was 3k to go, but Jesse Anthony told me later that he still almost stopped and picked them up to sell on eBay (Optum was a one-vest team).

Our directors had wanted all of us at the front on the plateau with 2k to go, but after the race went to hell, guess which twenty-eight-year-old WorldTour rookie was the only one who pulled it off? I put Alex in perfect position, but the breakaway stayed clear and we had to settle with another painful second place. I’d given everything, so my legs were locked up in the last five hundred meters when the team car slowed down beside me.

Download

Copyright Disclaimer:
This site does not store any files on its server. We only index and link to content provided by other sites. Please contact the content providers to delete copyright contents if any and email us, we'll remove relevant links or contents immediately.