The world is divided into people who do things and people who get the credit. Try, if you can, to belong to the first class. There’s far less competition.

— Dwight Morrow, 1873-1931, in a letter to his son

I caught a glimpse of the Vomit Comet on Sunday while driving out of town, bound for the U.S. Gran Prix of Cyclocross stop in Boulder. A few more dents, all the shortcuts in that Earl Scheib paint job looking like a Tijuana facelift, squatting a little lower on her springs.

And why not? The old girl had 23 years of service and nearly 300,000 on the odometer when I finally caved and sold her to a mechanic, who fixed her up for some young dude who needed a work truck. We should all look so good after that kind of hard mileage.

I drove that 2WD Toyota longbed to four different newspaper jobs, at least one Interbike and a whole bunch of bike races, including cyclo-crosses in Albuquerque, Pueblo, Colorado Springs, Fort Collins, Littleton, Mead, Golden and, of course, Boulder, which is where I first got my feet good and muddy back in 1991. So I considered catching a glimpse of her a good omen.

"Cyclo-cross up here," I wrote in my training diary on October 20, 1991, after failing to distinguish myself during a tough weekend of racing in the People’s Republic, "is gonna be a world of difference from New Mexico."

No flies on that boy. I wonder whatever happened to him.

I hadn’t been to Boulder or worked a race in the better part of quite some time, and I did both at Sunday’s Boulder Cup. The usual gentle zephyrs off the Flatirons steamrollered the banner-laden course fencing near the finish as the women’s race was getting under way, and as usual I was the only guy in the People’s Republic who was packin’ (a folding Buck knife). So while promoter Chris Grealish manned the ropes keeping the finish-line inflatables from sailing off to Louisville, Thomas Prehn, John Vickers and I spent a few harried minutes helping to cut the advertising off the fence and stand it back up.

It was a reunion of sorts for Chris, John and me. Back in the day, the three of us, along with Lee Waldman and a number of other gluttons for punishment, helped run a state cyclo-cross series that ran from Fort Collins up north to Pueblo on the south.

The Vomit Comet did heavy duty back then, because the barriers fit so neatly in that long bed, stacked from cab to tailgate. Once, when we were still living up in Westcliffe, I nearly skated her off the road on the steepest section of Hardscrabble Cañon while delivering the race kit to a ’cross in Pueblo’s City Park. "This damn’ sport has finally gone and killed me," I thought before wrestling the old beater back into line.

So it hasn’t killed me, yet. Still, once you’ve looked over that bitter edge, or even spent a few winter dawns sledge-hammering bent rebar into frozen ground, wondering if anyone else is going to show up to lend a hand, you come to appreciate the sort of determined effort even a little poot ’cross requires.

And Sunday’s race was no poot ’cross. I always thought Chris was the most imaginative course designer among us, and he hasn’t lost any of his chops. Dude could build a ’cross course with the dirt from a wino’s pants.

Fun with course design

Photo: Patrick O'Grady

From the officials’ stand, you could see the entire two-mile circuit spread out in Harlow Platts Park like a skein of yarn unwound by a hyperactive cat. The sucker had everything: pavement, grass, a big sand pit, plenty of off-cambers, one stiff run-up and that wind we spoke of earlier. It went in more directions at once than John Kerry trying to dislodge his foot from his tonsils, and I expect that some racers are still trying to regain their equilibrium today. I got dizzy just watching.

Folks on the right and left coasts are losing interest: "Yeah, yeah, so you got a bike race, big deal." But it was a big deal, because despite Colorado’s rep’ as a cycling hotbed, the circus just doesn’t come to town all that often. Elite athletes we got; elite events, well — that’s something else altogether. There’s plenty of racing, but spectacles are few and far between.

So it was exhilarating to see Katie Compton and Lyne Bessette slugging it out with the Flatirons as backdrop, Jeremy Powers riding the barriers on the Clif Bar run-up, Tim Johnson, Todd Wells and Barry Wicks throwing down with Ryan Trebon coming up fast from behind. Beer, brats, bells, Dave Towles and Richard Fries howling themselves hoarse — it was positively Belgian.

I got so caught up in the whole weekend, I almost considered getting back into race promotion, if only so I wouldn’t have to fetch knives to Boulder. Thank God I drive a Subaru Forester these days instead of an ’83 Toyota truck. My reach is forever exceeding my grasp. I’m better suited to the sidelines, a human sandbag for a wind-whipped fence.

Is O'Grady sandbagging again, or has he found his true place in the peloton at last? Weigh in at webletters@insideinc.com. Please include your full name, city and state or nation. — Editor