I'm a silver medalist now!
09-24-07, 06:26 PM
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Fear no hill
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High Pass ride report. I'm a silver medalist now!
Well here I sit wearing my finishers t shirt and my silver metal. O.K. just the shirt because sitting here wearing the metal would be a little silly though still tempting 
The ride was the High pass Challenge
The climb did not seem any harder than the Tour De Blast that I had done earlier this year, but then I also have a lot more miles of training under my belt than I did for that ride. However it was cold! I had a base layer, my bibs, by jersey, my arm warmers, my leg warmers, my gore jacket and my long finger gloves on and I was still cold at the top when we got to windy ridge. Where the wind was blowing at least a steady 20 miles an hour and it was a balmy 39 degrees. I think if I have done my wind chill calculations correctly that comes out to fricken cold! The roads themselves were not in the best of shape and we had to ride through at least four short stretches of gravel. You had to be looking hard at the road on a good part of the descent so you did not hit one of the many small pot holes or large uneven spots that would end up giving you a free ride down the hill in the big buss with the flashing lights on top. I got to work on my fear of high places as well riding the edge of the road next to very long steep drop offs. Once we got most of the way back down they routed us onto Cipus road. I was seven hours into the ride and I was picturing similar terrain as the route we had taken on the way up. I said to my self piece of cake I will get this ride done in short order now. Hoo wee that was a lot of wishful thinking! The road on the return route as promised was a chip seal road, but it was a very course chip seal. Rougher than any thing in my area anyway. So that slowed everyone way down as well as the several not so anticipated climbs along this part of the route. So when I got onto the chip seal road from hell I decided that if I were going to get better than a bronze finish I was going to have to start pushing it. So I did .. on and on I pushed on this road that I eventually decided really did not ever end. It did however eventually end at 8 hours 59 minutes and 39 seconds after 115 miles of riding which included 7600 feet of climbing . The whole route and the views were actually quite beautiful. I drove everything except the Cipus road route the day before so I could stop and enjoy the views and take a few photos as I knew I would not be doing any of that on the actual ride. All and all it was still a good ride and I had a good time. After the after ride sausage feed I went back to the hotel room, took a hot bath, Went out and ate a real dinner, then back to the hotel ...tried to watch some television, but ended up sleeping in front of it instead.
I got a silver metal and broke my 100 mile cherry all in the same ride.
The ride was the High pass Challenge
The climb did not seem any harder than the Tour De Blast that I had done earlier this year, but then I also have a lot more miles of training under my belt than I did for that ride. However it was cold! I had a base layer, my bibs, by jersey, my arm warmers, my leg warmers, my gore jacket and my long finger gloves on and I was still cold at the top when we got to windy ridge. Where the wind was blowing at least a steady 20 miles an hour and it was a balmy 39 degrees. I think if I have done my wind chill calculations correctly that comes out to fricken cold! The roads themselves were not in the best of shape and we had to ride through at least four short stretches of gravel. You had to be looking hard at the road on a good part of the descent so you did not hit one of the many small pot holes or large uneven spots that would end up giving you a free ride down the hill in the big buss with the flashing lights on top. I got to work on my fear of high places as well riding the edge of the road next to very long steep drop offs. Once we got most of the way back down they routed us onto Cipus road. I was seven hours into the ride and I was picturing similar terrain as the route we had taken on the way up. I said to my self piece of cake I will get this ride done in short order now. Hoo wee that was a lot of wishful thinking! The road on the return route as promised was a chip seal road, but it was a very course chip seal. Rougher than any thing in my area anyway. So that slowed everyone way down as well as the several not so anticipated climbs along this part of the route. So when I got onto the chip seal road from hell I decided that if I were going to get better than a bronze finish I was going to have to start pushing it. So I did .. on and on I pushed on this road that I eventually decided really did not ever end. It did however eventually end at 8 hours 59 minutes and 39 seconds after 115 miles of riding which included 7600 feet of climbing . The whole route and the views were actually quite beautiful. I drove everything except the Cipus road route the day before so I could stop and enjoy the views and take a few photos as I knew I would not be doing any of that on the actual ride. All and all it was still a good ride and I had a good time. After the after ride sausage feed I went back to the hotel room, took a hot bath, Went out and ate a real dinner, then back to the hotel ...tried to watch some television, but ended up sleeping in front of it instead.
I got a silver metal and broke my 100 mile cherry all in the same ride.
Last edited by Fixitman; 09-24-07 at 06:44 PM.
09-24-07, 07:28 PM
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Congratulations, you almost won. Of all the losers, you came in first. Nobody lost ahead of you.
09-24-07, 07:44 PM
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09-24-07, 07:52 PM
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Fear no hill
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Learn how to use paragraphs. Kthx.
09-24-07, 07:56 PM
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Sorry, that was actually a line from seinfeld's comedy routine where he said that the silver medal was, in his opinion, one of the worst medals to have for that reason. It's meant to be funny.
09-24-07, 08:04 PM
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Fear no hill
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Weird .. I went in and edited the post into paragraphs and it just came out looking just the same
Thanks for clearing that up. I was wondering if maybe I had married your ex wife or something 
Sorry, that was actually a line from seinfeld's comedy routine where he said that the silver medal was, in his opinion, one of the worst medals to have for that reason. It's meant to be funny.
09-24-07, 08:27 PM
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dude that is quite an accomplishment!!...congratulations!!!!....you should be proud....way to work hard a reap the benefits......next year you can go for the gold!!!!....don't worry, this board is full of smart @$$e$
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09-24-07, 09:22 PM
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Tough first century. Good job.
09-24-07, 09:26 PM
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Congrats!
09-25-07, 07:07 AM
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Ah, sorry, my humor meter must be low today, hopefully ill get it back after this cup of coffee.
09-25-07, 09:30 PM
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Fear no hill
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Thank you all for the pat on the back and encouragement ... the wife is in Europe right now, so somebody's got to do it as the dog and the cats were totally unimpressed
