That does explain things. Competition was brutal. Here's an action photo of me with two members of our 4 rider team as we blow through a feed station near the race midpoint. The photographer (who is also my wife) had wisely decided not to overtrain, so she had stayed off the bike since last July. But with the edge the Trek Antelope shown in the right bottom corner gave her, our team was a force to be reckoned with.

About 50 yards behind us, the DS for our primary rivals motivates his team. By the end of the race, they'd totally lost contact with us. Take that, weenies!