Monday, August 14, 2006

Kinzua baby.

36 hour vacation with my ladylove.
It started at 4:45 am Saturday. She slept, I drove. A hair over 3 hours to get to a 9am start time for the kinzua classic. The race is on an amazing course. 63 miles, 2 30 mile loops with a 2 mile or so finishing spur. Each lap has lots of hills, probably 6 miles worth, and the finishing spur is all uphill. The course used to host the PA state road championships and I wish it still did.

Last year some ringer from a Japanese pro team showed up and put the hurt on us. This year's field didnt have the international flavor, but still put the hurt on me.
I basically sat in the entire time. Glenn put in a huge effort to chase a break down hoping that I wouldnt screw up the finish, which I nearly did, but held on long enough to put my uphill sprint into action for the win. I really love this course and was glad to have done well. Glenn ruled the school putting his "just riding at the front" game on, where he totally puts the hurt on everybody trying to sit in for like 10 minutes at a time...

Amy and I then headed to The Kane Manor, a bed and breakfast for some quality time. We cleaned up and went to dinner, watched cable TV and just chilled out in some mansion that a civil war general had built. It was frickin huge, and reasonably cheap.

Things that I do now that I once considered being for "yuppies in their mid 20's"
- Listen to Modest Mouse
- Drink Coffee
- Go to Bed and Breakfasts
- Ride road bikes

there are only a few left for me to start including:
- drinking wine
- being a fishetarain ("vegetarian" that eats fish..)
im on my way.


We ate some french toast and eggs before a 30 mile ride to The Kinzua Viaduct. It was the tallest and longest railway bridge in the world before a tornado ripped it down 2 years ago. All the metal is still in the valley in a giant pile of rust. It was pretty sad. The Allegheny national forest is sweet and we drove on route 666 to get home.

I had an ice cream cone on the way home (2nd one of the year, first was after a 145 mile ride with dan chew [it was sugar free])

Soundtrack:
Dinosaur JR
Fugazi
Rushmore soundtrack
New order
Belle and Sebastion

5 comments:

Anonymous said...

Did you even look at your map of the course? How could you do 2, 30-mile loops? It doesn't even make one loop.

steevo said...

That map is of 1 loop & the spur. There is a cozway across the water to connect for a second loop. It isnt that hard to figure out.

Anonymous said...

Nice job at Kinzua Steevo! That course profile is a perfect match for your talents.

He to the B said...

If you are going to be a fishaterian, why not take the next step? Be a Yummymediumrareredmeataterian. As long as you stay away from the other whire meat, I think you may still be safe.

bikescag said...

Dude

I found your link from Drunkcyclist.com. Reading about Kinzua brought back memories..back in 96, while I was in Med School in Cleveland, I took 2 of my classmates and inducted them into mountain biking over our Fall Break. Our destination? Kinzua. We actually ran out of gas on Rt 6 and had to ride our bikes in the pouring freezing rain back into town to get fuel. The rest of the weekend was great- good biking, nice neighbors at the KOA campsite, and a toasty fire.

Thanks for stirring up memories

Bikescag