for their group ride. The start point was about 15 miles from my hotel so I hit the road around 630am to get their in time for the 730am ride out. Coffee was a struggle because every place I stopped at had long lines. I finally found a Starbucks that had no line so I nabbed a dopio and hit the road again.
When I found the meeting place I was pleased to see at least 100 riders! The club president was giving a spiel about the ride and the club. It was very nice. They welcomed all the guests, (there were a few including a master from Toronto who rides with Darko Fiko). We were told that there would be an A group, a B group and "pokey peddlers". I wanted to be with the A folk. The B folks were going to remain in town and the A folk were heading out into the desert.
Our group was pretty diverse with about 10 women. There was one guy there who was an amputee. He had a carbon fiber prosthetic!!! I am not kidding. He was no poser.
Everything was pretty tame until we hit that long 2-3 mile hill that I rode earlier in the week then all heck broke loose. Riders started falling off one by one. The group got whittled down to six when the rider in front of me lost the wheel he was riding. He pulled off and I tried to close the gap and just couldn't. That was it for me. It was a solo climb for the remainder of the hill. I was sixth to the top and was grateful to be there. It became apparent to me that I could ride with these guys just fine until we hit these long hills. Their top guys just absolute fly up them with such ease it was sickening.
There was no waiting at the top for the stragglers. I caught back up to the leaders and they threw down the hammer big time. Darko Fiko's friend from Toronto lost his computer and me and another rider stopped to help pace him back up to the group. The three guys up front didn't wait and the three of us worked very, very hard for the next 10-15 miles chasing them. They were like gazelles! Cheetahs maybe. They never seemed to pull away but we just couldn't close them down. Two of the three of us were out of towner's so we were getting some coaching on the course from the local guy. He told us about the top of the hills and what was after so we would mash the accelerator over the top and the descend like madmen. I have never descended like this! To close the gap we were putting in huge watts downhill and rotating like it was flat. I didn't have a computer but my guess is we were topping 40 mph. It was a total rush flying down the hills inches away from the wheel in front of you!!
We never caught those guys until we stopped to regroup at a truck stop. I was totally bug-eyed pulling in and didn't notice the very tiny yellow lip on the sidewalk and wham over I went!! It was a slow-mo' endo right in front of these guys that had just ripped my legs off. I reached up as I went over, placed my hand on the ground and landed the rear end of the bike. It must have looked really bad given what some people said. I can't repeat their words exactly but they were expressions of amazement utilizing the word "holy" and a descriptive term for excrement.
After tanking up on water we rode through the city to a pretty cool bagel place. The club provided bagels and cream cheese for members. I thought this was a nice touch. Kind of a party atmosphere.
One of the hammer-time guys up front had a Team Slipstream kit on. I saw another guy who fell off the back with the same kit so I wasn't sure what was going on. Well, I got back to the hotel and went to the Team Slipstream website just to see if this guy was one of them. This is the guy who tore us all apart:
His name, Francois Parisien. I spoke with him early on in the ride and he was super cool. Someone was giving him some friendly grief for not waiting for us but he replied that the race was on!! No kidding. I didn't plan on this when I started my day. The cool thing was he didn't totally destroy us. He maimed us pretty bad but we were still swinging way.
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