out & back.

relocating your life can be a bit of a burden, however, if you enjoy riding a bicycle, it suddenly becomes good reason to ride that extra bit, eat that other sandwich, and then blog about it. 

in any case - i moved, and now my old road loops have an extra 20-30 miles tacked on. this weekend i headed out for one of my favorite spins, the Palomares Road out and back. Many hours passed with one song (which i don’t know the words to) stuck in my head. It’s fun — swear.

-kevBRITE

p.s. AB&M may sound suggestive, but, it simply stands for “almond butter & marmalade” sandwich

Wards Ferry Road Race - 2012

with the go-cart packed and de la coffee in hand, i headed out around 4:30am, en-route to Sonora, California for the 14th Annual Wards Ferry Road Race. The long drive gave me more than enough time to rehearse the basic plan i’d established for the race: stay up front. 

My genius** plan seemed all but dashed when i rolled up to the start line and learned that the P/1/2, Masters 1/2/3 and E3 groups would be lumped into one field. We were set to complete 5 laps of the hilly 12 mile course.

Fast forward and our 43 man group is dropping into a fast, bumpy descent. Yours truly — somewhere in the back half. After managing to gain a few spots, we hit the first hill and I settle into a comfortable rhythm, someone jumps and we all rush to close the gap. This is the scenario. Rinsing / repeating, climbing / descending. I’m working hard to keep myself relaxed and alert. There’s a hill at the beginning of each lap that they’re calling the “feed zone” (i’ll call it Feed Hill). Feed Hill seems to bait everyone into hitting the gas. At one point, possibly lap 3, I’m doing my best to hold on to the lead group, and my breakfast, while we frantically rush up Feed Hill. Coming over the top, I glance back and see that our group has shrunk to about half of what it was. This smaller group keeps an efficient pace through the descents and along the rough back stretch. We approach the right turn onto Feed Hill for the last time and someone turns it up. I work myself into the red to get around a few riders and latch onto the back of the 3 man move. Coming over top we’ve got a solid gap and I’m doing all I can to recover while not losing contact. I couldn’t muster up a pull and sat on for a bit while a maniacal bike racer in an iron data/thirsty bear kit, who shall remain nameless, pulls the 3 of us around. My legs decide they want to respond again, and I do my best to help keep our distance from the group. The four of us share the work the best we can and there’s still no sign of a chase. At about 2k to go, the aforementioned maniacal bike racer tucks into TT mode and basically rolls off the front of our now splintering group.  I cross the line 3rd overall - taking the top spot among the E3 field.

Tough race, and there’s a picture of my pain-induced donkey face floating around the interwebz to prove it.

-kevBRITE

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