Mt Evans & Leaning Tree Crit

Mt Evans:

Been fighting a summer cold all week, and woke up to the alarm at 530 Saturday feeling like a train ran over me. Evans, with 28 miles of virtually uninterrupted climbing, is simply not a race you can fake, so pulling the plug on that one was an easy decision.

But I did ride! Sort of. After a few more hours of sleep, I got up, determined to get my climbing workout in, saddled up, and left downtown at 11 headed to Golden, intent on riding up Golden Gate canyon (18 miles up & down - 3 serious climbs to the Peak-to-Peak Hwy), north on the P2P and then back down (up) Coal Creek canyon through wundervu. It was 100 degrees in town, 98 in Golden, and I made it to the top of the first climb dizzy and unable to focus on the road. I turned around and coasted the best I could back to Denver. Too hot, too sick, too miserable.

Sunday was no cooler, but I loaded the car and headed to Boulder for the Leaning Tree crit. The sun cooked us as we lined up, and we were off. Thankfully the heat was hurting everyone, and it kept speeds down (25.5mph for the hour-long race). So what do you do when you're sick, struggling to swallow, overheating, and almost certain to have to drop out before the finish? You attack, of course!

So I did, over and over, every time the pack would mushroom I would shoot off the front. Unfortunately, my condition didn't leave me with the power to stay away, so I got reeled back in every time. A break got away early with 3 guys in it, but I don't think any of us gave it a snowball's chance in [Boulder] of staying away in that heat.

I spent the race alternately hiding from the wind, slowing the pack when a teammate would attack, attacking, and chasing my friend Richard up and down the pack while he made sound effects (vrooom vrooom and other airplane/F1 noises).

Got on the wrong side of the wind on the last lap, and was cooked by the time the real sprint started at about 200m to go. Coasted through the finish in search of shade.