Strawberry Rides Forever

Did the Strawberry "Century" last Sunday with little Bro Jared. It was his first big group ride. There were 800 registered riders plus a few of us bandits. I figure I don't stop at the sags and I don't want the t-shirt so why pay. I pay to ride when I plan on stopping and eating.

It was slow for about the first 10 miles so I got to the front and pumped it up to 25 or so. I got off the front a little but then all of a sudden everyone was ready to ride fast and quickly caught me. Kinda like when you try to pass an old man on the highway. He'll do 50 until you try to pass him and then he'll do 90 to keep you from getting past. By mile 30 the average was up to 24. There was a section where the front group of 60 split in two and Jared and I were in the second group. The gap was widening and I couldn't wait so I jumped across. It took about 2 minutes of a maximum effort. By mile 50 I had to pee super bad. I whipped off the road at a stop light. I was able to get back on the group without too much effort. I had a team-mate, Diego who attacked the group a couple of times but was caught. I gave it a shot with 5 miles to go but was caught and again with 2 miles to go. I would have stayed away if not for a traffic light. The group was down to 12 at this point so I sprinted as soon as the light changed and led out Diego to first with me in second. Jared was first in the 2nd group in the top 20. I was pretty proud of him. Oh yeah, you could smell strawberries almost the entire ride as the course wound through the majority of Florida's strawberry fields.

Commuting

I get to commute to work during daylight savings time, woohoo. It's a 75 mile round trip so it's not real practical to do it every day but this week has worked out pretty good so far. Monday I rode to work and Sharon picked me up. Her cousin flew in to Tampa and we picked her up. Tuesday I drove in and rode my bike home then rode back in this morning. I was noticing that there are a LOT of traffic lights last night so this morning I counted. You won't believe how many there are. 59! That's almost 2 every mile. That's why I cruize at 22 or 23 mph and only have a 20mph average.

There's a race coming up that I'm probably going to do called Webster/Roubaix. They have a 15 kilometer loop with 3 k of narrow winding dirt roads. Sounds pretty cool to me. I don't think I'm up to the 180k Pro race so I will do the 120k masters race. Wish me luck.

Long Day

Had a long day today and I'm a wee bit tired. Got up and took the kids to school. Rushed home and rode the 40 miles to work. There was a pretty good crosswind the whole way but it was from the left so I got a break every time a car passed (about 4000 cars). I worked all day and got off at 6pm and headed towards the house, another 40 miles. I gave Sharon a call and picked me up with a mere 8 miles to go. I wasn't tired, I ran out of daylight. It was cloudy today so the precious daylight left us early.

Here's another pic of me racing.

6 Hour Mountain Bike Race

So I haven't been riding much at all, but I did a mountain bike race. I have ridden about 100 miles in the last month but Jeremy from work talked me into doing a team race with him. I borrowed my boss's MTB and rode the trails here in Lakeland last Sunday. It's been about 4 or 5 years since I'd been on a mountain bike butthe skills were still there, albeit a little rusty. Last Thursday I went with Jeremy and rode some of the trails the race would cover so I had a small idea of what it was going to be like.





The team consisted of myself, Jeremy, and Barbara. We'd planned on signing up in the co-ed division but because Barbara is so good they made us race in the advanced division. I had to keep telling myself that we were just out there for the fun of it but I raced as hard as I could anyway.





Barbara took the first lap in a respectable 50 minutes, about 6 minutes slower than her normal lap. I rode a 45 minute first lap and passed 11 people. Jeremy did 49 minutes . Barbara's second lap was about 49 minutes. I felt really good on my second lap and passed 21 people. I did right at 44 minutes but could have gone faster had I not been hung up on so much lap traffic.





It was Barbara's turn again after Jeremy got back from his 2nd lap but since she was doing a road race on Sunday my chivalry shone through and I took her 3rd so she could save her legs. I passed another 11 people.





We ended up 3rd with a respectable 7 laps. No other team did more than 7 but the other 2 teams ahead of us finished their 7 before us.





I was fun especially since I had my 2 younger daughters with me. We played Apples to Apples between my laps and they also got some good pictures.


I got my pick f some swag for a prize so I picked up this beauty for my wifely unit, Sharon. She said I should wear it. Ha ha.