Brokeback Tandem

Well, the glorious summer has come and gone, its now September, my early morning rides are at a consistent 54 degrees, full arm and knee warmer equipped.....ubermondo depressing. I don't even want to imagine what the temps will be in, lets say, February. Regardless, its been an interesting month thus far. Big rides have been the order of the day, first and foremost the Douthat Dynamo: A 108 mile night ride from the Burg to Douthat State Park. Originally, in true roadie fag form, I decided to ditch the Dynamo due to concerns that such a disruption in my sleep schedule would in turn ruin my training and racing for the remainder of the year. However, Der LandeKurte (A great man who will be represented in this blog) talked me into riding the Dynamo with the prospects of using the ECBA tandem. I agreed, not knowing that the 80lb, campy equipped Goliath would be a bitch to lug over the hills and valleys of western VA. After a number of mechanical problems the aptly named "Apollo 13 Glacier" arrived at Douthat with its trusty captain and stoker after 9 hours of hard riding, with and average speed of 13mph. My legs felt fine, my arms and knees were sore as hell due to 38 size bars and 170 cranks. My hands, violated, after 9+ hours on the sweet spot of Kurt's plush ass. The Ibex elk, forever engraved into my retinas.

On the other end of the spectrum, Ive noticed the Moutain shitsack has had a rather uneventful and unproductive "racing season." The whale returned the Burg to race the Shenandoah Mountain 100 mile race and was one of the foremost trash talkers of the lot. In true form mountie finished the race in a blistering time of 13.5 hours, just barely nipping the paraplegic in the wheelchair at the line. Following closely behind mountie scum were Mr Rodgers, an obese insurance salesman, the Sun Meadows Nursing Home Powerwalking squad, and the pope. Well done Ryan on an outstanding performance against a stacked field.

With two races to go this year Ive been training up to finish up with hopefully some good results. Goal for 2007 is to race the Tour of Shenandoah with the Trek/VW squad headed up by Jeremiah Bishop as well as get on a real team. Big winter training will hopefully see that through. Further updates in about a week.
with love
-alien