Sunday, June 17, 2012

pucker

Even though I've been riding a bike forever, I still manage to do some pretty dumb things. Yesterday, we rode 67 miles in the country. Great ride, didn't get lost. Both of us had our Garmin Forerunner 305's loaded with the course. My mistake was failing to hit the start button after I'd set the course. No big deal. Bigger error was on this mornings shakeout ride.

I've only ridden this particular course twice before. Once with an experienced rider, I hooked up with as he was leaving our neighborhood and again when I tried to ride the same route on my own, but of course I got lost. This time I made the right turns, but failed to appreciate a sharp turn. Scary shit when you're coming thru a turn and your feathering the brakes to slow and the wheel hops three feet sideways. That pretty well ended my ride, right there. Scared me. Only thing I could think of was the wreck Beloki had in the 2003 Tour de France. I didn't go down. Just went ahead and soft pedaled home.

 


I've always wondered how the mind reacts after an accident. My little wreck last year hasn't slowed me down any, but it has made me more apprehensive on descents. G passed me in a descent yesterday because I thought we had a tight switch back turn coming up and slowed to around 32 mph. I usually always push pass him on the descents, mostly because I outweigh him by 15 pounds. We rode one road in reverse yesterday that was to steep and rough to descend without riding the brakes the entire way down. Burt Bergen still is the most intense climb we've made yet, I can't imagine coming down that one at speed.

Yesterday was the RC Cola Moon Pie 10 mile race in Bell Buckle. Hate that I missed it. Usually even in the years I don't run, I volunteer. Not this year. Thought about being one of the geeks that show up on the bike, but G had already mapped out our ride for Saturday. Just as well, had we ridden out we'd have had to deal with way more cars than usual. Plus, it would have made for a really long day. Even with our 5:30 am start time we weren't finished until close to 9:30 am or so. Lots more time on the bike versus even the longest of my training long runs. Still don't seem to be any closer to starting back running. Sigh.

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