Mid South 2020 - A beautiful disaster
I remember standing in the crowd near the stage as Bobby Wintle started the pre-race meeting. Most pre-race meetings last about 10 minutes, and are very utilitarian, with the sole purpose of communicating pertinent safety information such as dangerous turns, construction, SAG support, etc. And of course a lot of thanking sponsors. Bobby covered all of that, and went a step farther. He speaks with the electricity of a southern preacher, the excitement of a child who destroyed an entire bag of Halloween candy in one sitting, and the motivation and compassion of a loving family member.
As an event organizer myself, I see The Mid South as a different kind of beast. I’d never been to an event where the organizer was so engaged with the participants. These folks are usually behind the scenes with chirping walkie talkies, keeping the show running like butter on a stack of Belgian waffles. I’ve never seen Bobby hold a radio, but I have seen Bobby hug a few thousand people throughout the course of one day.
As you can tell, for me, The Mid South is more than a bike ride. It’s an event where I found strength I didn’t know I had and didn’t know I needed. I’m not fast. I usually try to finish in the top half of the field. Mid South taught me that a lot of times mental strength is more powerful than pure wattage. Watts don’t matter if you stop pedaling.
So how does this apply to a paint job? In 2019 I finished the ride in 7:43:15. It was my first year for Mid South (then Landrun 100). In 2020 I finished in 11:58:58. That’s the difference in a dry and a wet course. For 2020, I was riding a new bike - a Cannondale Topstone Carbon with an Ultegra RX double setup. Not ideal for the conditions but as they say - “Run what ya brung.”
If you’ve never seen the red Oklahoma clay or what it can do to a bike, here’s the gist.
The clay had clogged every nook and cranny of my frame - the stays, behind the cranks, in my pedals, derailleur cage, brake pads, you name it. After cleaning my bike I found that there were rocks the size of the gaps in my chainrings lodged and cemented in place with clay. These rocks gouged my bottom bracket each time I turned the crank.
When I returned home from Stillwater I took the bike down to the frame and cleaned what I could and tossed out anything unsalvageable like seized bearings. First disappointed at the state of my frame, then proud of the battle scars I knew that I had to do something about the exposed carbon surfaces. I reached out to Nick at TW Carbon to talk paint. He’s been painting and repairing frames since 2014. I’ll have more on Nick and TW Carbon in a follow-up story coming soon.
Here is the concept - I wanted something that directly represented the event from a color and graphic standpoint. I knew I wanted lots of flake in the paint because matte jobs are so 2018, and this project was unique and needed to stand out in a mass start (in a non-COVID world). The deep royal purple represents the high respect I have for this race, it’s fellow participants and Bobby and his team. I decided to throw in the pink elevation map as an ode to the red clay and course map. Although it’s not the most climby of courses, I felt that this was still important. The light blue added a lighter contrast to remind me to look up at the sky from time to time. When I enter the pain cave I tend to stare at the road 10 feet in front of me for hours at a time forgetting to enjoy the scenery.
