Weekend Craziness..
Monsoon season let up at least momentarily and with the wet weather an recent memory Saturday it was back out with the Beavers for a little training. The group was a little smaller then usual but with all jokes, laughs, intermittent hammer sessions you really wouldn’t have known it. Heading out yours truly was leading the pack when a target, another cyclist, was spotted a quarter to half mile down the road. Seeing the target and chomping at the bit I lead the charge. The heart rate shot up and with each revolution the target inched in and soon we tagged the prize, one old dude cruising along in his aero bars.. Yeah what a prize.. (groan).. Right after making contact we hit a hill and just after the hill the old dude road back up and said something along the lines of “That’s all you’ve got?”. Myself, still recovering, I was more then happy when Becky answered the call and dropped the prey for good. The rest of the ride was relatively regular. In the ened we logged close to three hours.
Sunday – Let the Craziness Begin
Ok.. So some times we all do stupid things. Before I go into mine, let me just say right up front that I was very lucky on many, many, levels. Ok so the brief story of one moron & a pack of friends. We all met up Sunday, I’d suggested doing the Alsea Fall’s loop but we opted to ride out and preview the upcoming Cherry Pie road race course. All was good and we motored out through the farm fields surrounding the greater Corvallis region. With all the rain we have been having the rivers have swollen up and many of the fields have flooded. After an hour or so our route of choice ran into a road block of sorts. The road was covered by a good 4 inches of flowing water. What to do? The correct choice, turn around and ride some where else. Our choice? Hey its only four inches, lets give it ago. Well this first crossing went well. Then again we hit another road block this time the water was calm but slightly deeper, again we gave it ago with the hope that it would be the last bottom bracket cleaning crossing. Then we hit the big one. This one looked a little deeper and had what looked like a fairly strong current flowing through it. Better judgment would have for sure turned back here. But convinced it was the last crossing and with excess confidence I set out to make the crossing with other riders following closely behind. At first all was good, then the water deepened and the current increased. Think air has a lot of drag try fast moving water. Yeah, so as you guess, the current tipped me over and I bailed and got swept down stream chasing after the bike. Waist plus deep in fairly fast muddy water my feet just churned in the mud and I couldn’t see anything. Then moving down stream the bottles came up, yes they float even when filled with Cytomax, and the pink Cytomax really contrasted against the sea of brown murky water. Then I saw a bike tire. Yes! Thank the lord the tires float, the bike didn’t get caught on anything underwater, and the wheels had yellow stripes on them. I then tried to pull the bike out but couldn’t get back out, the feet had no traction, and I couldn’t pull against the force of the water. Moving down stream I ended up floating out on the other side of the stream. In the end I saved everything & the bar tape got really clean but it was very scary and I’m never, ever, ever going to do that again. Even with being completely drenched I was still amazingly warm and after a cliff bar we turned it around and headed back to higher ground. In the end the ride was a little over 4hrs with the swim.
Sunday – Let the Craziness Begin
Ok.. So some times we all do stupid things. Before I go into mine, let me just say right up front that I was very lucky on many, many, levels. Ok so the brief story of one moron & a pack of friends. We all met up Sunday, I’d suggested doing the Alsea Fall’s loop but we opted to ride out and preview the upcoming Cherry Pie road race course. All was good and we motored out through the farm fields surrounding the greater Corvallis region. With all the rain we have been having the rivers have swollen up and many of the fields have flooded. After an hour or so our route of choice ran into a road block of sorts. The road was covered by a good 4 inches of flowing water. What to do? The correct choice, turn around and ride some where else. Our choice? Hey its only four inches, lets give it ago. Well this first crossing went well. Then again we hit another road block this time the water was calm but slightly deeper, again we gave it ago with the hope that it would be the last bottom bracket cleaning crossing. Then we hit the big one. This one looked a little deeper and had what looked like a fairly strong current flowing through it. Better judgment would have for sure turned back here. But convinced it was the last crossing and with excess confidence I set out to make the crossing with other riders following closely behind. At first all was good, then the water deepened and the current increased. Think air has a lot of drag try fast moving water. Yeah, so as you guess, the current tipped me over and I bailed and got swept down stream chasing after the bike. Waist plus deep in fairly fast muddy water my feet just churned in the mud and I couldn’t see anything. Then moving down stream the bottles came up, yes they float even when filled with Cytomax, and the pink Cytomax really contrasted against the sea of brown murky water. Then I saw a bike tire. Yes! Thank the lord the tires float, the bike didn’t get caught on anything underwater, and the wheels had yellow stripes on them. I then tried to pull the bike out but couldn’t get back out, the feet had no traction, and I couldn’t pull against the force of the water. Moving down stream I ended up floating out on the other side of the stream. In the end I saved everything & the bar tape got really clean but it was very scary and I’m never, ever, ever going to do that again. Even with being completely drenched I was still amazingly warm and after a cliff bar we turned it around and headed back to higher ground. In the end the ride was a little over 4hrs with the swim.
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