20 intrepid souls set out for LexCo @ 0900. It was overcast, and 50 degrees. Pretty good IMO.
The decision was made to keep the group together, and gather at the end of certain sections. It was the proper thing to do, and a good decision.
All of the dirt sections, save for one (more on that in a moment) were in really good shape. All riders traversed them without issue...well...
Our Tifosi Roubaix glasses winner, who drove down from North of Charlotte, was on his road bike, and suffered a series of punctures just shy of the halfway point. To be honest, I don't think it was the fault of the dirt road. Something was in the rim...bad rim tape...something.
Fortunately, JBrstl's mom and step-dad were out roaming in the follow vehicle, and picked him up.
It was a push for the poor guy. Sure, he flatted, and had to climb in the car, but he did get a pretty cool door prize out of the deal! Thanks to Tim and Henry @ Summit Cycles for the glasses!!
Once past the halfway point, and out of the biggest section(s) of dirt, liquid began falling from the sky. At that point, we had a choice. Go the quicker way home, and get out of the rain, or suffer through.
The quicker way was chosen. Here we come to the piece of "road" I said would be mentioned above.
When JBrstl and I reconned the loop, this section was pretty good. This time, not so much. We've all seen the sand pits in Euro CX races, right? Now imagine one of these pits...got it in your head?
Ok. This one was about a mile long, downhill, in the rain. Pretty brutal.
I apologized to everyone at the bottom, as I just didn't know that the condition of the road would be that poor. And to the man, everyone said the mile-long sandpit was their favorite part!
Shows that I know exactly shit...
Oh, and Scott Nuelken gets the "Dismount of the Day/Geologist" Award for his Superman-style get off at the end of the sandpit. He thought he'd found the Sven Line, up on the bank. Unfortunately (for him), and fortunately (for us), he didn't take the 5 foot drop off into account. I'll give him credit. He tried to ride it. The rest of us knew how it was going to end though.
The front wheel went nearly hub deep into the sand, and he took on the role of Geologist. Soil sample anyone?
We all rolled in more or together from that point. We had a couple of guys who cracked pretty hard.
Everyone finished, and to the man, said they enjoyed it, which is all I really wanted. 20 guys...for a dirt ride...and a borderline crap December day...whodathunkit?
Big ups the guys who came from out of town too. We had Charleston, Charlotte, Augusta, and Columbia folks in attendance.
If you missed it, well, you missed it!!
Totals for the day :
Crashes : 2 (3 people went down) Junk and Drogalis went down on the boards along the RiverFront. They were deathly slick. No injuries, thankfully!!
Failures : Flat tubes for our road bike friend, and a disc brake failure (Go figure...)
Money raised : Not going to give out totals, but it now seems that Mr. Bristol is going to CX Nationals in Colorado!! And that was exactly the impetus for the ride.
The ride also fostered a really nice, really needed feeling of community. We all stuck together, helped each other along, and had a good time!
And let's be honest, JBrstl is deserving of the time, effort, and money raised. He's a good kid. He busts his ass everyday. Work, School, riding, racing, helping out his folks, and being an altogether good mensch.
I'm proud to call him my friend.
Thanks for coming out everyone! I truly appreciate it!!
Also thanks to Farm Bureau Insurance, Swobo, and GlobalBike Wipes for their support of our little adventure!
Enough of the feels...
We had a nice little group Sunday too. We rolled out into LexCo, did a big loop, and ran back in. Another 55 miles on would could be considered hollow meat sticks.
Still felt better than lazing around the house.
Kalmthout was yesterday. Racing under the lights. So cool...
OK...I've burned enough of your time today. And I need to go help my momma this morning. Time to get rolling...
No comments:
Post a Comment