Well today was fun... Shawn volunteered at the Blue Ridge Extreme event. What is the Blue Ridge Extreme? Well, think road bikes and the largest darn climbs you can find traversing the Blue Ridge Parkway.
I followed the early riders out of the meeting spot and climbed the first hill before seeing Shawn at rest stop 1. Yeah. Shawn. After the warm up, I left the rest stop. I was supposed to do the climb and return before 11.30am so we could head back to town. No problem. Happily, I was off. Why not pull a bunch of people through the flats and up the hill. What started as a helpful pull for a lovely woman on the flats, quickly became a 10 person pace line
with me pulling the entire time. I was happy to give some of the riders a quick reprieve before their first major climb of the day.Ok. Crabtree Falls Hwy climb was likely the longest climb I've ever done... One of the guys on the paceline pulled away with me and we bantered the entire way up. 10 miles of climbing felt like 10 min (but it wasn't 10 min... not even close). I ran out of water near the top to find the rest station oasis. Peanut butter and jelly never tasted so good.
Right before heading down the mountain I saw friends from Cville. Frank Ortiz and his son were on the metric century route and he broke a spoke (not a safe to decend with a wobbly wheel). I offered my wheel set to let them continue. Thankfully Shannon, Shawn's future sister in law was at the rest station with a car. She let me ride down with the bike to rest station 1, while she continued to take photographs of the riders (photographer du jour).
Too bad I missed the decent; but I felt good about helping a friend... oh and helping out the riders who I pulled. A couple of them said thanks when they finally reached the rest station. What did the rest of the day hold? Aye, well... after an hour on the couch... I hit the pool for laps and a walk with the neighbors.
Catch-up: 18 hrs on the farm.
18 hrs. Oh yes, 4pm Saturday, Aug 16 to 10 am Sunday. I rode with a friend, alternating laps. All night. I must say, a duo team was one of the more difficult types of races this season. As a two person team, you theoretically should ride faster than as a solo... so you do. Alternating laps means that you only have 50 min rest between laps- just long enough for your muscles to cool off.
Either way, Christy and I pulled pretty fast laps the first few times around the course, then settled into a regular pace... kicking butt. In all, we finished 18 laps total, winning the 4-person women's class, duo co-ed and another few classes... depending on how you categorize us.
All the rest of the Bike Factory teams did well. Shawn finished 1st male solo (after tending to a fellow mtb-er for 40 min or so- Amazing). Ken and Dave took command of the race finishing a close second overall (to a 4person team). Also, our female 4-person team were awesome!
For more information on this race and to see photos... check out the newly updated Bike Factory Blogspot- see the team
http://bikefactoryracing.blogspot.com/
What is next?
How about the SM100 next week.
http://www.mtntouring.com/mountain/htm/shenandoah_mountain_100/page_sm100.htm
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