The Second Half

BACK ON TRACK......well, not really

The stomach flu came and went - and I was back riding by 3pm on Saturday. I still thought there was a possiblity I could lay some cable in my shorts, so I went with black. It ended up being a great road ride up to Snowbowl one and a half times. It was 36 degrees at 9,000 feet, and I rode the descent in snow flurries that were so dry that the road never even got wet. Sunday afternoon was a SS MTB "race" with some local dudes. It always starts out as "oh, let's just take it easy and ride" - yeah right - the pace was sick right from the get-go. I did not feel good, and got beat on some climbs by a true hardass who was riding a rigid FIXIE '82 Fuji road frame with 700C rims, moustache bars, a 43 x 20 gearing, old-school campy parts, a willier road stem, and a suspension seatpost. The stickers on the top tube said "don't hate me 'cause I'm beautiful". Yeah, well, come to find out "Klaus" owned a shop in Crested Butte, and he has ridden single speeds with Steve Garro (who now rides a self-made hand bike after crashing into a car head on at 45+.......ONLY this guy would survive that), and the other true hardasses of the sport for years. This was his first ride in 9 months. The f'r was sanbagging too - saying stuff like "man this is hard", and "whew, I'm just lucky to be hanging in with you guys". I couldn't take it anymore, and I just took off on the descent to get away from it all. YES - I was smoked by a dude on a bike that I would practically consider impossible to ride, but I was also being played by him, so I took advantage of his weakness and dropped him so I could get away from his incessant rapping about being drunk, owning every bike under the sun, fixing anything, and living everywhere in Colorado - it was enough to make me want to puke more than when I had the stomach virus. Glad that ride's over.

I have a weird week - more on that later.