After riding for 2 hours in pouring rainon Friday, the sun came out and we left in 65 degree sun for the 5 hour trip to Colin's house. I didn't even think to bring shorts. 3 Cannondales on the roof rack looked pretty P-R-O.
Saturday AM had gourmet pancakes. For real, Colin's reputation for being a chef was spot on. Totally awesome. Also some "Caffeinated Cyclist" coffee... Cant go wrong there right?
Oh the race?
What hell! I could end it there.
41 degrees and pouring rain. Not like in Ohio where it was only pouring rain for the first half, but the whole thing was pouring rain. There was a pond on the course that some guys were asking if they needed a permit to fish in! Seriously though, this was as awful as it can get. 4 degrees colder and there would have been ice, so it would have been cancelled.
Lucky for me I had to ride Friday in the pouring rain, so I thought to myself "no way I am going to be unprepared for this if it rains tomorrow." I had my rain pants, cape, booties, the whole deal for my warm up. This didn't help 4 minutes into the race when I was fully saturated and totally frozen. Race of attrition anybody??
Jared took a flyer at like mile 3 and somehow it stuck (somehow = man that dude is pretty tough). This left us all just grabbing wheels on bridge attempts. I felt as good as somebody who is borderline hypothermic can feel. A group of 5 got off the front of the main pack, with Fergie, Fred, and Stubna. Fergie got popped after the bridge, and Fred flatted (Also, we rode after the race and Mike had glass in his tired, if it had been like 10 minutes longer he wouldn't have finished either!!!!). They had about 30 seconds on what was left of the field. I felt good and somehow we split it up to be in about an 8 - 10 man group. Colin, Hacker, Me and somehow kincaid came up out of nowhere. This was good. I tried to keep the pace up so what was left of the field wouldn't see us again. Hacker took a flyer with 2 to go but got caught. Stefan and I just tried to keep the pace up for the sprint, which I think Colin got 2nd in.
After the race I thought I might die. No seriously. Its good to know I can do a 50 mile race taking just 1 sip of water and 1 gu. My hands stopped working half way through, I was shifting with my pinkies. When I hit bumps I wasn't sure if I was actually holding onto my handlebars or not. Pretty scary. Fred lent me a warm jacket to ride back to Colin's house in. Man did that help. I was impressed that Colin had the dexterity to unlock his door!
The same 3 inches of exposed skin that got a weird suntan last week (above the bootie, below the knee warmer), was literally PURPLE when we got back to Colin's. Mike and I both had these weird red spots all over our hips. I thought bike racing was supposed to be healthy? jeeez.
Dinner = "buritto Loco", which was so crazy I couldn't finish it. I had a decaf Americano for dessert. We cruised around for 1:15ish after the race, because of course it stopped raining and the roads were dry.
"To outfit an army," is an expression that you hear sometimes. Colin could seriously outfit a cycling army. We were drying all our clothes and he brought out like 5 pairs of gloves, tons of booties and jackets and stuff for our cool down ride. Its funny for me to think that a 1:15 minute ride averaging 16 miles an hour was a cool down recovery ride, but I guess when you aren't in Pittsburgh anything is possible. We looked awesome all in our kits on our bikes, Ill post pics later.
Summary:
- Pancakes are good
- Peanut butter and coffee
- Colin is a great host
- Jared
- MGGPOAC (Meredith Group GPOA Cannondale) rocks the 2nd,5th,9thish,11thish,13ithish,15thish
- 40+ dudes start and 20ish finish!
- Sorry for bumping into you Hebe!
- Colin is a sweet host
- Brokeback mountain was better than crash for those of us secure enough in our manhood to watch it.
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