Drove down with W on Friday afternoon. Added 3 EZ Up tarps to the Family Bike's compound in the pouring rain. McNeely gave me sh1t for my poor driving skillz on the way up the muddy hill to the campsite;-) Went to dinner at Fireworks Pizza in Leesburg and couldn't order a Budweiser because they are beer snobs in addtion to being pizza snobs. Dinner was tasty;-)
Woke at 6:30 and the rest of the troops started filling in. Jen arrived around 8. Race started at 9. I was the last one out at the start, I figured I'd give everybody a 10 minute head start, but when I saw Jellyfish, Ebae, Tuff Ally, and Charly bringing up the rear, I decided to jump on the caboose. First lap was bottlenecky till about mile 5 or so.
Conditions were drywall spackle type mud. Not flying up in your face and not really even sticking to tires. Just slowing you down. Worked twice as hard to go half as fast. No brakes needed because as soon as you stopped pedaling you started decelerating. I felt great for laps 1 and 2. Lap 3 was a good lap too as I was able to clean the whole course without anybody in my way on the technical bits. I could tell on lap 3 that subsquent laps were going to be very taxing. Lap 4 was tough and I pulled straight past our tent camp and rolled over the timing chip mat. I didn't throw in the towel yet, though. I pedaled back to the tents for some rest.
Couple of Action Shots
Jen was waiting at the tent compound for me and convinced me to ride one more lap with her so I chugged a Raging Bitch and off we went for a slow conversational lap. It's rare that we get to ride together anymore so the prospect of some good man-and-wife riding gave mots to the effort. She was riding single speed too and this was her 4th lap. We rolled across the finish and I turned in my chip. She and i joined the Nystroms for some hanging out, and then Jen decided to go for one more victory lap alone.
Aerial View
Having rode 13 laps last year, 5 laps this year was a bit disappointing. But I quickly turned my frown upside down and enjoyed some post race adult bevvies and socializing. Passing a fifth of Knob Creek around was especially nice. Most of us soloists who pulled out the race by mid afternoon were half in the bag by dark, while we cheered on our duo and trio team buddies who continued to make the effort with lights blazing.
Schwag
Water bottle this year. I like the cow bell better;-) Same shirt as last year but brown this time. Me likey that. brown is the new black, baby!
After Photos
Jen's Rig
My Rig
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