By Claw All year Claw had been "clawing" his way back to some semblance of form. Several setbacks had beset the Great Man, none of which could be fixed by any remedies he knew of. He tried the proven basics: animal sacrifice, bloodletting, a Great Salt Lake enema, and ancient native peyote rituals (several of those)... but nothing could bring back the Claw of old. The ass kicking Claw. He wanted himself back. But as the months ticked by, frustrating months where he was subjected to the humiliation of being passed up on the road by old ladies confined to the iron lung, biggest loser contestants who dropped out of the biggest loser competition because they never lost anything, and even a pack of amputee sea turtles that were heading cross country on an ultra-fondo, yes the months he loathed with the loathing of a loathsome lout. Those kinds of months. Slowly the power had returned to his body. Slowly the sun dial he used as a cyclometer was awakened from it's long slumber. Slowly the crusty deposits receded from the crevices that festooned his pock-marked loins. He knew this to be true because he BEAT Mike Pratt by 3 seconds at the emigration hillclimb. Yes! "The return of the ASS KICKING" he thought as he soaked in his daily brine bath, small crustaceans nipping at his dangly bits. And the Double M Road Race would be the site of his triumphant return to his throne of He Who Was To Be Feared by all those who DARED to challenge him, all those who had slowly gotten up from the pile of the defeated he had left in his wake the last several years when he well and truly WAS an ass kicker! Yes those men would now cower and whimper as the Great Claw beat their asses to a grainy pulp. Or at least he wouldn't get dropped, hopefully. And the race DID start out just as he dreamed, with a click into pedals and a whirl of mountain air tinged with Old Spice and Ben Gay, the race was on as the riders pedaled furiously, hoping the tenacious Claw would falter so they could relax without the limpet that hugged their draft and harshed their buzz with the reality that a 52-year-old could hang. HA! He was giddy with the sensation of imminent victory! The trophy girl would be his! He would smother her with his garlic-scented pheromones as he collected his pay check, made a few well reasoned comments to Phil and Paul, and gracefully entered the helicopter with a switch of his svelte ass cheek, winging away to the hotel... and champagne with the team, his team! But then, suddenly and without foreshadowing, without foretelling, and also with a distinct lack of foreboding his dream of victory, or at least retrieval of small smidgen of dignity, was quashed by an unfortunate situation. The road turned up.