Crank the Kanc

Saturday morning came and it was time to try and make the legs work. I was not thinking I was going to have good legs as the two weeks leading into the race had not gone very well from a riding point of view. I meet JJ and A1 at the staging area to get my number, they had driven to the top of the course to stage a car as both of their wives were racing as well. My wife was going to meet us at the top (stopping along the route to cheer us on with the girls). It was misting and in the upper 40's when we began to get ready. I chose to chuck the bike on the trainer to try and get my legs to open up a bit, and despite the chuckles from A1 and JJ I think it was a good idea.

We were the fifth team on the road and the start was somewhat comical as I couldn't get clipped in. I figured that was a sign of what was to come. We had descided to do 30 second pulls, that quickly fell apart as we were doing minute plus pulls right from the start. I quickly became apparent that A1 was a bit tired from setting something like eight tents the day before (each tent weighing in excess on a thousands pounds or so- and in the rain) and JJ had spent the better part of the week in Colorado drinking and eating good food. My pre-race fears of struggling to hang on washed away and JJ and A1's comment about me pulling them to the base of the climb seemed to become sort of a reality. I was having a tough time picking a pace and I think JJ and A1 were a little uncomfortable getting tight enough on my wheel to enjoy the vacuum like draft my large ass offeres up. In hindsight we should have practiced pacelining a bit more prior to the race.

Either way we rode well to the base of the climb, JJ managed to snag all the town and county lines out on the course. Not that we were racing for the town lines but we mangaged to put JJ on the front each time we came to a line. I knew A1 must not be feeling good when we hit the climb as that boy has been climbing like a 200 pound Pantani- I was certain JJ and I would be struggling to hang onto his wheel but it was clear early in the climb that he was hurting. He still managed to maintain a good pace- even at one point putting it in the big ring for a bit to "stretch his ass"- we ended up posting a time of 1:25 or 1:27, not to bad. It was a lot of fun (at least for me).

We all took the easy way down, via car and looked for Nikki and Susan and cheered them on.

All in all a good day.

Yesterday it rained all day so I took the girls for a hike and then sat on the trainer for a half hour last night just to spin the legs out. Commuted to work this morning and hopefully there is a NEMBA ride going out tonight- will try to take advantage of that. I'm hoping A1 and JJ will make the ride and I have a feeling they will be riding a bit stronger today.

That's it from here.

later,


DEA