Bike

• 4h 28m 46s
• 67.26 miles
• 15.02 Mi/hr

Oh what a ride!

When the alarm went off at 6 am and I looked at the radar I was looking for any reason not to do this thing. I still hve my cough, I was tired, my bed was warm, it was cold outside.

A couple of texts later from my riding partner Greg and we were a go.

I need to eat more than I did for breakfast. 2 granola bars are not going to hold you for a 100K ride! But I'm an idiot - that is what I had.

The first segment was pretty fun. The group kind of split up into like paced groups. Since I did not know this part of the route I sucked a wheel - and felt good about it.

I followed a nice older couple in the Chaska SA only to find out the check point was the Chaska Holiday down the street. My own fault for not following the cue sheet.

When Greg and I left the Holiday I knew the route without having to use the cue sheet because it was all roads I have ridden or drove when I went to church.

This section realy put the hurt on. Lots of climbing. I was feeling good about our progress and then we turned west on Hwy 7.

Driving this I never realized just how long the hill was between St. Boni and CR 10. It was long! And we had a head wind to boot! This just drained me. To make matters worse just before we made the turn onto CR 10 the light rain started.

Now I am accused of being a pessimist but I really thought if we could beat it into Watertown where the next check point was we could out run the rain as we headed east.

I did put my rainjacket on at Watertown figuring I would stop and remove it when we got out of the rain. Never happened.

My legs were like logs leaving Watertown. It took a good 5-6 miles to get them spinning again. And once more I found out that a road I drove was a lot hillier on the bike. CR 15 into Mound seemed to be a steady climb. I was really hurting by the time we hit the trail.

At this point it was going to be a sufferfest the rest of the way. I was shot.

I did enjoy riding much of my commuting route even if it was in the rain and I was shot.

When we rolled into Texa Tonka Shopping Center to finish I was very happy to get off my bike.

My hope was a 15 - 16 mph ave. With the wind and the rain and my illness I will take the 15 we did.

Bike

• 1h 22m 28s
• 22.64 miles
• 16.47 Mi/hr

This was a good ride. I wanted to go west and get away from the people on the bike path. Mike and Zach are not used to riding the road and dealing with traffic but they did great.

A few miles into the ride I thought I had something stuck to my tire. Turned out I had a flat! The boys were impressed with how fast I changed the tire and how well the CO2 cartridge worked.

I struggled on a few hills but we kept up a good pace. My goal was a 15-16 mph ride. We averaged 16.5 I'm happy. Now if only I could get rid of the cough!

Bike

• 1h 24m 46s
• 21.90 miles
• 15.50 Mi/hr

Only had 3 other guys go today. Too many girl friends getting in the way.

We had a good west wind and we were going east to begin with so I kept the pace down so not as to blow up the slower riders just in time to turn back into the wind.

We dropped Chris really bad on the big hill up from the river. I kept the pace up until the turn in behind Target Field and waited for him there.

As we went up the rammp across the street there were a couple of punk/emo girls in front of us. The one almost rode her bike straight into the brick wall! Downtown people are wierd.

Jeremy and I kept a good pace wiating for Chris at every split in the trail. Once we hit the north end of Cedar Lake I figured Chris could make it back on his own and we took off.

Jeremy tucked in behind me and never took a pull (that is OK I'm looking for a work out). Eventually, just as I was tiring, I was able to latch onto another wheel and he dragged us for a couple miles and let me recover.

After I got back and changed Chris rolls in. He was all hot that I hadn't waited at a split and he ended up lost. I was very confused. It is a trail for God's sake.

He ended up taking an access off to a road and came back on residential streets. The access was about 100 feet long. You would have figured he would have known it was the wrong.

Bike

• 1h 12m 57s
• 18.79 miles
• 15.45 Mi/hr

Rode down to the Opus Crit and watched some friends race. Then I did a cool down ride with Tim where we went around the Cedar Lake loop.