Great job I could not get the picture on the link. Ed
Sent from my android device. -----Original Message----- From: Steve <[email protected]> To: "North Raleigh Cyclists (Gyros)" <[email protected]> Sent: Wed, 22 Sep 2010 09:29 AM Subject: [Gyros: 16532] Re: Congratulations Steve on an amazing achievement! https://docs.google.com/leaf?id=0BxSqd7ZzUrKoODQwMDc1YTUtMTJkYS00YmI4LTk4NGItNjQ4MDY0OGE3OTdm&sort=name&layout=list&num=50 Hopefully this directs to a pic Mary took of the last 50 feet of that verticle climb to the finish. The colors are on yes. That was one of the hardest days in the saddle I can remember. The first 40 or 50 miles were pretty fast and crowded, but sorted itself out when we hit 181 and the long climb. It was a steady climb where I finally got to the chase group which was 5 min. behind a group of six. They didn't really want to organize for some reason or another (team mate in front group?) We slogged on always into a headwind of course. Dang hot too. Some of the water breaks were on downhill or flats so no grabbing those cups except for the fun of splashing the cup holder....There was a Latin team, Bimbo (lol) which had a car always pulling up to us with Mex music blaring and the ladies yelling andele! and animal! lol. Watched a fellow right to my right just fall for no reason. Hit his head good. This course was routed differently than past ones due to road construction. We were doing the big loop to GFMt. backwards so that added a 6 mi. Parkway climb which was really grueling due to headwinds. At around the 80 mi. mark had run out of water, and that's where they decided not to have any more sags.....parched and doubting whether I could make any more hard efforts, we entered GFM entrance and started the switchbacks of hell. I was riding with a fellow from Boone who would yell "hell yeah!" upon seeing a new pitch upward. Animal.....there is a point on the road where you can see the final switchbacks. I saw a small figure on a bike when I tilted my head back enough to hit my back. Doubts of completion came flooding in, but kept the mantra of one stroke at a time. One more stroke, just one more. Wierd how we can fool ourselves....After an eternity my animal friend a few meters in front lets out this gutteral scream like oooooooffffuuuu...!..we were at the final ramp. Lordy, not sure cars can go up that. One stroke at a time. I'm not getting off cause I can't walk. One stroke more, the wife is watching. Can't drool, dehydrated. Did a few swooshes up the incline, doesn't help. Hear lots more folks yelling at me.... why did I do this? I'll get even with Marc... They had a bevy of folks at the finish assessing the condition of the riders at completion. Guess I had a pulse because they let go of me and the bike. Even Gatoraid tatsed good. Had a 5:30:45 finish which was good enough for 16...ok for the "old" fart. :) -- You received this message because you subscribed to the Gyro email group. To post to this group, send an email to [email protected] To unsubscribe, send an email to [email protected] -- You received this message because you subscribed to the Gyro email group. To post to this group, send an email to [email protected] To unsubscribe, send an email to [email protected]
