Lest I Feel Smug

Sheck and Allman at our lunch stop

Man, there are some rugged folks around here.

Even better than that there are some rugged women around here.

Lest I begin to think to highly of my athletic, and specifically my ability to ride a bike, all I need to do is look around and my pride will be put in check.

I got out for a long ride yesterday. Depending on how you look at it it was the longest single day ride I've ever done (I've ridden further, and on less ideal road conditions, but stopped to sleep a few hours mid-ride. There were no naps yesterday, and I've yet to find the time to ride a century.) I started the day at a reasonable hour with bacon, eggs and coffee after a short ride to Allman's house. Then three of us set out for a very pleasant long day tour.

I ended my ride a long ways from home where my wife and baby met us with the babymobile. Late in the afternoon Mrs. Bike Wrider unloaded her bike, hopped on and pedaled towards home. I don't know that she intended to ride all the way, but she did. And Allman rode the whole way back with her. Keep in mind that she had a baby a few short months ago, and has had very limited time back on the bike since.

She rolled in just before the 1 o'clock hour. No lights, tired, happy and hungry.

Allman and Sheck rolling along

Today I took the little dude to the local cyclocross races to hang out and watch the crazies ride around in circles. Met a friend of a friend there and in the course of conversation she happened to mention that she did the 100 mile mountain bike race last weekend. If that weren't impressive enough, this has been one of the rainiest summers on record. The trail was a ridiculous mud bath of bottomless puddles according to some accounts. 100 miles is a big ride no matter what the conditions, and a hallucination inducing sufferfest on a muddy trail with multiple mountain passes.

The whole time we were discussing last weeks race we were watching national cyclocross champion Katie Compton put the hurt on the local boys. We were there to watch the men's race, and there are some amazing athletes in the this town. Katie Compton was around this week teaching an early season cyclocross clinic and was the only woman in the men's race. She took it easy the first couple of laps and then kicked it a notch.. Not that she was suffering at all, but she smoked the local hot shots. Definitely fun to watch. Hope she has a good season.