July 20, 2009

Monitor pass #1 (front side)

My legs truly felt amazing (just a simple fact). I was climbing in the 39-26 for the most part but it wasn’t like I couldn’t shift up and still keep tempo. I think what got me through this first pass for the most part in the beginning was seeing blinking red lights in the distance. My goal was to catch and pass everybody while still staying in the saddle. As the map of the grades shows, it states parts where the grade ramps up to 7.something% and 10+%. Not knowing exactly where these parts were, I was waiting to hit them and then to have to get out of the saddle for an extended period of time. However, this never happened. While I can think of parts where my breathing was a little more intense and where the grade increases might have happened, I definitely did not feel like it was unmanageable in any way. One of the other things that I really enjoyed about this pass was that it was so dark (with only my small $20+ headlight casting light on the road/trees). I have honestly had dreams/a desire to ride at night, in the dark, with no cars around, where I was truly alone without any worries. Anyways, I made it to the first checkpoint/sticker stop and had to wait for 5 min before a volunteer actually noticed me. Had this guy take a picture of me and then I continued on to the decent down the back side.

The decent was not tricky in the least, it was wide, very few turns, but somehow I still almost managed to overcook a very wide hairpin turn. It wasn’t for the fact that I chose a bad line, but mainly because I was oblivious to looking into the far distance. When I first noticed that it was a sharp turn, I started thinking “oh shit oh shit oh shit”. Luckily I pumped the brakes and was able to make the turn without any problems for the most part. When I got to the bottom there were already 3 riders there. Only filling up less than half a water bottle, nature break, chatting up a volunteer and getting my 2nd pass sticker, I turned around and started up monitor #2 (back side ascent).

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