Thursday, January 05, 2006

Jan 4 6:15 / 101 miles

An epic day to be sure. Planned to ride with Justin England (United Pro) and Laure Franges (Victory Brewing). We were to meet at Lauren's at 9am...so I needed to be on the bike by 8:30. The forecast was for nice a nice warm upper 50's high...but of course at 8:30 it was 33 degrees and pea soup fog. As I got about 10 min away the phone rang and it was Lauren saying that Justin wanted to delay the ride 30 mins. I figured I was on the bike anyway, so I rode a loop and got to the house at 9:30. We finally got going about 10. There were 5 of us to start and we decidede to do the hot springs-doggett loop backwards from the way I did it sunday.

After about an hour and a half the sun finally came out and Lauren, Justin and I headed into Hot Springs (the others headed back for a 2-3 hr ride). We did a store stop, then headed on our way. Just about 3 miles out of Hot Springs Justin pops a spoke on his front wheel. Of course now days we all have these low spoke count radial laced wheels that ...if you break one spoke... they become un-rideable. Justin heads back to the store to call for a rescue mission to come save him...and Lauren and I head on our way.

This is a great loop...hard, with lots of climbing. We do the 30+ min climb up the backside of Dogget, then fly down the other side. As I approach the 5 hr mark I start to suffer some, but hey...it is a nice day...what would I rather be doing? Once again about an hour from home I get a flat. This time I notice a nice gash in my tire...probably from yesterday. I boot it with a Clif bar wrpper, fix the tube (I brought 2 today) and promptly notice that I am standing in a pile of dog poo.....lovely. Nothing like poo ground into your cycling cleats. Of course Lauren gets much more entertainment out of this than I do...but hey ...it is a nice day , right? After Lauren turns off for home I grovel back the last half hour into a head wind...tired...but not nearly as bad off as I was last sunday.

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