Day 1: Louisville or Bust (No Robin, you don’t have to choose)

The essentials:

• 4 cyclists
• 7 bikes
• 28 wheels
• 1 pound of gummy bears
• 1 pound of sweet tarts
• 2 gallons of water
• 2 pounds of bananas
• Unlimited phone minutes
• United States Atlas circa 1999
• Garmin (aka “Jack”)
• Full bellies (thanks to Pancakes by Jason™)

8:15am – Chef Jason, anticipates the arrival of 4 hungry cyclists. He skips the 7am and begins to prepare coffee and a helluva lot of pancakes.

9:00am – Everything but the kitchen sink outside one car. Within 20 minutes, all is packed and we’re ready…9 hours to go.

9:45am – On the road, Vehicle #1 [Leslie and Wendy] leads the pack. Vehicle #2 [Andy and Robin] scopes out the competition.

10:12am – First bathroom stop. Thanks LJ. Make that 9 hours and 7 minutes.

11:30am – Second bathroom stop. Nothing but high class for bike racers in “Wild and Wonderful Virginia.”

1:00pm – Lunch Stop at Panera – Andy makes tactical error of ordering salad to go…. His car is a stick-shift. Eat fast.

3:45pm – While LJ and Andy fill up the gas guzzlers, Robin and Wendy decide to check out the local movie store. Wendy stopped here. Wait. Where’s Robin going? Oh. Wendy misunderstood.

7:10pm – ARRIVAL !! Andy conveniently learns that his Priceline booking for the Hyatt starts on Sunday. He’s homeless Sat night. After he unloads both cars, the girls finally give in. Yes, you can stay in one of the extra bedrooms—just tonight.

8:10pm – Robin, Andy & Wendy go for a quick spin in Louisville, KY. The route is scenic and reminiscent of River Road in Potomac MD. After an hour, the three return home. Tired. Hungry. Mentally and physically exhausted. But feeling really punchy. Leslie is inside watching TV and chillin’. She sees the three walking into the back yard with gardening tools. Leslie is accustomed to random photo ops, so she (wisely) stays inside.

Stay tuned for more adventures on Day 2…

New Teammate or Cross-Dresser ?

We recruited a new teammate at the Murad race. Unlucky for him, (but quite amusing for us) the only jersey we had on hand was my women's small, so it was a bit of a squeeze. But once he was all zipped up, his new colors made him feel like a tough-guy. Tough enough to tell me his chest is bigger than mine. I'm not sure how to take that.
It was all fun and games until we had to tell Mark that Team CycleLife is, in fact, a women's team, so we were going to have to let him go. He took it well. We had to get a little forceful to get my jersey back ... so we're not sure if he REALLY wanted to ride with us, or he just wanted to wear a womens jersey. The truth may never be known.

CSC in a picture

This was how my race got started at CSC. This is pretty much the story of my day. As this happened, I looked down at the girl (who was on a PRO team) on the ground in front of me and said outloud "Really ? Is this really how we're gonna start this race?".



Live to race another day. Thankfully, LJ had a better day, finishing 18th after a long, arduous race. This was a prime example of my feeling that they should pull lapped riders - no one knew who was where and on what lap. (Someone sent me this pic, so I dont know who to credit for it ... sorry!!).