May 10, 2007

Gila Monster and Beyond

I'm hanging out in Fayetteville, AR getting ready for the start of the Joe Martin Stage Race. Tour of the Gila ended on Sunday and I have been trying to lay low and get some rest before the next race. As far as Gila goes it was a really hard year but one of the best ones too. Out of 125 guys that started the race only about 85 finished the race. I threw down a great time in the opening TT with a huge 90th place or something like that. I am known for my amazing TT abilities.


It was great to be racing with Evan again in a big race and we spent the chill times of the long road races talking about how much coffee I drank before the stages, summer plans and girls. Those are always good ways to pass the time in a road race. Unfortunatly, there wasn't a whole lot of down time in the races due to racers trying to win the bike race. In the first 100+ road stage Evan rode amazing and pulled off a good result. I managed to crack with 1 mile to go on the climb to the finish and actually lost more the 20 spots in that last mile.

This is a pic of Evan on the climb.

Our host house for Tour of the Gila was sweet. We were staying out in the middle of the wilderness at an old ladies ranch. She had donkeys and Mules that we liked to feed and hangout with.
This is one of my teammates, Sam Johnson. He has a way with animals and always knows how to dress like a classy gentleman.

I must say that the best part of Gila was racing with a team from Rwanda. There were 4 guys on the team and they came all the way from Africa to do this race and they finished the entire thing. I tried to talk to one of the guys and quickly found out that they spoke absolutely no english. They weren't the best or fastest riders in the field but the had so much heart and did amazingly well considering there experience.All in all the last few days have had alot of bike racing and alot of traveling. We've made it a fun trip and hopefully Arkansas will go well. I'll keep you posted.

2 comments:

Anonymous said...

Nice pictures. Glad to hear that you were one of the riders to finish the race. How many lbs of coffee did you go through during Gila?

Owen said...

I had a french press and in 5 days of racing managed to go through a little under 2 bags of the Big Ring. On my own too.