Rogue Wolves Home of the Wolfman

Okay okay! So it has been quite a while since a blog update (I suck at this) so let me catch you up on what has been happening in our world. Rather than one big post I'll break this up into several smaller posts.

So where do I begin? First off, the MS Bike marathon I participated in at the end of september went great. I can't believe I rode my bike 150 miles. I confess, I was nervous as hell about the ride. I wasn't sure if I would make it to the end, but I surprised myself at how well I did. It was amazing how many cyclists particpate. There were roughly 2,500 cyclists on the road. Overall the weather was good, it poured rain the morning of the first day but after that it was nice and sunny and not too hot. The second day had a brutal head wind in the morning but turned beautiful like day one. I can't complain because I was worried it would be 40 degrees Celsius the whole time like the previous weekend. I doubt I would have lasted long in that heat.

The marathon was not without mishaps. The first mishap was my fault, it was only a couple miles into the race where we came up to a stop light. I failed to see a cop holding traffic and waving us through. I stopped at the red light. If you have ever been in a marathon you know what a fatal mistake this is. I nearly caused a pile up as everyone behind me screeched on their brakes. I quickly realized my mistake and put on the after burners (I wanted to get the hell out of there before they lynched me). Nobody wiped out so it wasn't a big deal, just not a good way to start the marathon. Ooops. Lesson learned: pay attention!

The second misshap a cyclist lost traction while zipped around a turn and completely wiped out right in front of me. Luckily, I was able to manuever around him and avoid running him over and crashing myself. He turned out to be okay with just a little road rash.

The final misshap for the day occurred less than eight miles from the day one finish line. I blew out a tire. It was right outside the last rest stop where they had a bike mechanic so I lucked out. Less than ten minutes later and I was back on the road. I finished out the day traveling 75 miles in about five hours giving me an average of 15mph.

The morning of the second day I was exhausted and stiff and was close to bailing on the ride but I forced myself to give it a try. I'm glad I did because it didn't take long for my muscles to loosen and adrenaline to start pumping again. The second day turned out to be easier than the first (after I busted my ass through a nasty headwind), probably because I teamed up with a really good cycling group called Boobs on Tubes (no joke!). They rocked! We had a great momentum going. I can't stress the importance of riding with a group on one of these rides. Less work + kick ass speed. They were a really fun group. The only mishap for day two was getting lost. Before we teamed up with Boobs on Tubes I failed to see a route sign and ended up in no mans land. Fortunately I realized mu mistake fifteen minutes later and back tracked. Not a big deal. Considering I can get lost in my own backyard, this was to be expected. My average speed for day two was 16mph.

Crossing the finish line was such an awesome feeling. I'm definitely going to do the ride again next year. They plan on changing the route because there were spots were you rode on a busy highway. We had several close calls were jackasses would cut right in front of us to take an off ramp, or not move over and narrowly miss you with their side mirrors. When someone is driving past you at sixy miles per hour and narrowly misses you its a bit unnerving. The coordinators plan to fix this next year and avoid the main roads as much as possible.

All in all it was a great experience and I can't wait for my next big ride. I'm addicted.

Robbi took some great pics and a movie of me crossing the finish line but unfortunately my hard drive crashed recently and I lost them along with two months of data. Sigh. Back up now if you are reading this. You have been warned. The MS Society has put up pics of the event on flickr here and here.

Tomorrow we are heading off camping for some nice rest and relaxation in Linville Falls North Carolina. It's finally cool enough down here to start camping.

That's it for now. I'll post more soon.