I was heading out for the bike racing, but always an awesome excuse to hang out with The Berger's in New Castle... and of course have some heated games of quoits! Because I couldn't leave until after the class, I had to miss out on racing the TT... which also meant missing racing against Lance and Levi. Though, I'm pretty sure I wouldn't have wanted to see the results anyway. Frightening I'm sure.
Saturday afternoon was the Glenwood Springs, Rock the River Road Race. It was likely to be pretty painful, and the afternoon winds were picking up just in time for our race. Things were pretty calm on the way out; I gave a bit of leadout for the last mile into the dirt, and then suddenly remembered that I don't really like dirt. Somehow, I managed to ride pretty well, the bumps were bad, but not horribly consistent. As always, I had a bit of grief when we got to the sudden change of the climb, before the turnaround. Plus, I was being too conservative, and gapped away. After the climb and the turnaround, I was pushing hard though, and picking up one group after the other - doing more than my share of the work. After not too long we caught the first real chase group on the road, which had Seth in it, so I went to the front to see if we couldn't get that group up the road. The wind was howling, and I was feeling good, but I had very little help, as our group got more and more "luggage". With about 5 miles to go, I finally gave up and just sat in the group as we noodled home - that always makes me insane. Then finished in the group, opting to not sprint, even though it turned out we were further up the finishing order than I thought, due to lots of disqualifications.
We recovered with several delicious beverages in Glenwood at the Glenwood Canyon Brewery, and plenty of people watching. Sunday there was a crit in downtwon Glenwood, and it's usually pretty hard to get motivated for. It's pretty sketchy, and really doesn't suit me; way to "punchy". Though while sketchy, the technical turns do let me ride pretty easily through them, and make up any necessary time. The race was fast from the gun, and essentially I made sure no one escaped off the back. But finished in the main field without too much drama. Good news really, considering the work I did in the road race - and the number of beers I had on Saturday night.
Another good visit to the west, and time to race the storms home. Crazy rainbow, and rain for that matter, just around Eagle. I wish I could have found my real camera, but driving was taking priorty;
Monday it was back to work. I was almost starting to like class, just because I was away from my usual duties in the office. Mostly I was just looking forward to no real after work commitments and going home to hang out.
And the mailman had brought me some new toys. FINALLY, my new grips had come in, so I could finish up the installation of the new handlebars I had gotten for the Ninja. You know I couldn't resist skulls...
Also got my new fender-eliminator kit, so I was able to trim the back of the bike down from this;
To this;
Much cleaner look for the rear of the bike... and lower, flatter, more comfy bars. I got to ride in today, and it felt strange, being new, but I was already adjusting to the tweaked position, and overall, it should be much better. If the 40-days of rain ever stops, I might actually get to put in some real miles on the bike!
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