Only one race left on the schedule for the year - 24 Hours of Moab and I'm going solo. I've got a fat support crew lined up, Kong and Andy from Desert Cyclery are going to be there wrenching for Dave and I, grandparents taking care of the Kinders and Steve taking care of my whims and needs during the race. I'm looking forward to being encouraged by lots of people to ride my bike for an obscene amount of time in a (quasi?) socially acceptable format. He he! That's the best excuse for racing 24's there is.
The second best excuse for racing 24's is the big pre-taper ride binge required for a proper peak. Dave and I polished that one off last week in the Moab area and it was tasty. Friday was a few laps on the race course following Dave's secret lines, Saturday was a clockwise lap on the White Rim (about 110 miles) and just to peg it off the charts Sunday was a counter clockwise lap on the White Rim (about another 110 miles).
Here is a poor picture of the view from Murphy's Hogback. That has gotta be one of the finest views on the planet.
Here is a much better pic poached from Dave. This is the top of the Mineral switchbacks.
After this picture Dave drilled it up the rest of the road and I sucked on air in his draft. I was just about to get dropped when Metallica came on the mp3. A little Metallica in the right places does wonders. Dave pimped my new mp3 full of tunes and two days of White Rim rocked by in a flash. Riding through the sandy sections after Hard Scrabble Hill will be forever imprinted with Duran Duran's Rio - "her name is Rio and she dances on the sand". At the time I was flying and feeling like I was dancing instead of riding. It is not going to help my hearing any that's fer sure.
Nothing's stopping me now. Today about 30 minutes into a 4 hour ride I squeezed my front brake and nothing.
Brake pads, bolt and spring all missing! How weird. I backtracked a little up the trail but they were nowhere to be seen. I was burning up babysitter time and was too amped to go home for a new set so finished off the next 3.5 hours with rear brakes only - that worked.
So now I have work on my mp3 playlist for Moab. Any suggestions for rockin' tunes to crank into my ear drums during the race? Send 'em over. I'm all ears :-)