What did we do today? What was it like?
Tour of the Gila, the Gila Monster stage, which is like being woken up in the middle of the night and forced at gunpoint to run a marathon in 90 F.
How did I do?
I got 24th, which is, without question, my best UCI race ever, and maybe podium, my best day on a bike.
Quote of the day
“Nooooo. Not another bike race!”
My daughter has definitely had enough of seeing me get on a bike for a week.
“Can I make you a tortilla with a lukewarm hotdog for dinner, love?”
“I think I’d rather starve.”
Me to my wife on the road trip from Silver City to Albuquerque after the race. The dinner after the Gila Monster is sacred, and I wasn’t about to waste it on room temperature leftovers.
“That was a ride, man.”
Tryel to me immediately after I finished the Gila Monster Stage. When Tyrel compliments you, take it!
“Dude, you don’t need brakes on these turns.”
Dude in the group I was rolling to the finish with. I know, man – someday I’ll learn how to Bool.
“Did you guys pay up Peter for getting in the break?”
“He did not get seven minutes.”
Henry’s response to the team group chats after Peter got in the early break to try to unlock $100 from Henry.
“Lars, do you want another chicken nugget?”
(crickets)
My wife to Lars, who had somehow fallen asleep going over Emory pass, one of the twistiest roads I’ve ever been on, holding a half-eaten chicken nugget totally asleep.
“I like the way you die, boy.”
Throwback from the entire team watching Django during Joe Martin last year. It was rolling on a loop through my head all day.
What I hated about today
Literally nothing.
I could bitch about getting some cramps, or not climbing slightly better, or descending a little less like a runaway semi, but…whatever.
Today was a day I live for. My legs actually showed up. The moment we started climbing for real, I could sort of keep up with the front group a bit, and my body didn’t collapse, and I could keep going and going and going.
The best part, as usual, was just was boolin’ with the boyz. Ethan, Chaz, and I made it a little behind the leading group over the first climb but caught back on in the descent. There’s nothing more exhilarating in bike racing than making a selection with your teammates in a race like this – it makes you feel like all of you have narrowly escaped death, and it’s hard not to feel closer somehow.
I can’t wait to do it with them again at Unbound.
Kinda everything. Today it all came together – I had one of the rides of my life on one of the hardest road stages in American road racing, when I came back from the race my family hadn’t left because they were tired of me, we managed to fit a semi’s worth of packing into our Subaru, I didn’t accidentally drive off the side of the road going over Emory pass on the way back to Albuquerque, and in the last hours of the day, I sat outside on the patio in the dark eating a steak burrito bowl from Chipolte sippin’ a Miller Lite talking to two (but not all!) of the finest ladies in my life.
I was having one of the days of my life and I knew it.
I’ve spent years failing badly at bikes so you don’t have to. I have a mortgage, two kids, a wife, a dog that doesn’t listen, a weakness for Miller Lite, and fish frys – but I can still turn a pedal if I have to. Chances are we’ll get along just fine.
C’mon now – let’s get fast together!
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