Tour de Cur(s)e

I didn't drive up to Brigham City on Friday intending to ride 100 miles.

The goal was 2 centuries this summer. I really wanted one of them to be the ULCER (around Utah Lake) in August. We rode a surprise century a few weeks ago. That combined with crappy weather (and thus crappy training) meant we'd probably just do an "easy" 67 miles.

I was even more convinced of this as the forecast went in the crapper. And, when we woke up in the morning to wind and rain, I was ready to drive home with my very expensive Tour de Cure t-shirt.

I didn't count on Layne being so ticked off. He was so mad that I decided that riding even 25 miles in the rain was worth working out some of his anger. I donned my WINTER gear, and off we went. Here's me in nearly the same gear that I wore in the SNOW in Yellowstone.

Welcome to Summer 2009.

Funny thing is that the rain only lasted a mile or two. In fact, it looked so good that when we got to the turn around for the 25 miles, we just kept going.

Then we came to The Hill. And just like that, I remembered this ride from last year and wondered "What the heck am I doing here again?" Kind of like labor, I guess. Here's the hill. Just in case you can't see where the road is going, I've highlighted it for you.

That's 3.5 miles of 4-5% grade, Baby. My original account of this ride (and the 10 lessons I learned about life and God) is way too long for a blog post (think 4 pages). You'll thank me for not posting that, I'm sure. Let's just say I pedaled, I sucked wind, and I finally got to the top-- only to be scared @#^%-less by a rainy, 38 mile per hour descent down. (I'll email you the full account, if you're bored.)

The rest of the ride was long, but fairly uneventful. The one funny thing that did happen was that 10 miles to the end, some guy pulled up to us and said, “Hey—I think that you were the one who pulled me in last year!”

You see, last year, Layne bonked with 13 miles to go. We were riding into the wind and so I told him to tuck in behind me and I pulled him in. The thing is, 5 or 6 other guys decided that was a good plan and they also joined on. Not one of them took a significant turn pulling (and taking the brunt of the wind) and they all (but Layne) sprinted off in front of me with 200 yards left, so as to not be seen being pulled by a girl on a pink bike.

This guy proceeded to tell us that last year was his first century (mine too, actually!) and he was totally cooked at the point that he joined on with us. He said that he wouldn’t have finished without me pulling him in and that he would be happy to pull me for a while this year, as he was stronger this time. I was doing fine and didn’t need a pull, but I let him anyway, just to give him a little of his dignity back.

You're welcome.

My victory shot. Sorry about the blinding white shoulders. I was nearly suffering from heat stroke by the end. Turns out we got about 45 minutes of sun after all.

Seems like something always happens on these rides. Layne bonks. I bonk. It rains. At the end, I can barely believe we've finished.

One last parting shot-- gotta love the helmet hair!
I wonder if this means that I will talk myself out of the ULCER in August? Maybe I should just book a trip to Disneyland that week so I won't even have to think about it again. . .