Tuesday, May 29, 2007

We had a sucessful memorial day weekend. We (Chris, Tim, and I ) packed up our mountain bikes and our road bikes and headed off to durango on Friday morning. We met up with Brad and set up camp. We did a quick spin on the road and started preparing for the next day's event.
Chris and Tim made their correct start time--a improvement over last year. They headed out a half hour me. Brad left 5 minutes before I did. My goal was to stay with the leaders. I started off okay but ended up moving towards the middle and back of the peleton. I did do better than last year, but still ended up further back than I really wanted to be. When we hit the first hill, I lost the leaders but was able to catch a group of about 12 or so. I rode with them through a descent and some flats. On the next hill, coal bank, we broke up. I was able to ride with different, smaller combinations of this group through the end.
I pushed myself more this year than last, but ended up slower. I finished well, 13th overall and won my category. I was pretty excite for that. I had no idea who was actually in my group because all the women left together and the numbers did not correspond to any grouping. Admttedly, I am a bit of a sandbagger. I should probably race in a higher category, but I am not licensed so I can't. Before heading home we rode hermosa creek. It was a fun ride but a bit of a fiasco. Some friends of Brad's were riding it, but they were going to shuttle. They have different philosophy on riding than we do. It took forever to get the ligistics figured out and we did not get riding or well over an hour after we would have by ourselves. I guess it was worth it but in the future we won't be shuttling this ride.
We also took Brad on his maiden voyage of porcupine rim. He had a really good time, of course. We got an early start and the weather was perfect. The LaSal's were nice and cool. As we dropped into the valley the temperature rose. Chris had to use my SS because both of his frames are broken. Therefore, I pulled us back to town. I don't pull as well as chris does, but I think I held a good pace for everyone. I felt good in a fatigued sort of way. We hit the abreviated version of sovereign on our way out of town. There was no one out there. We only encountered a half dozen people between the two rides in moab. It was crazy especially for a holiday weekend!

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