Saturday, August 13, 2005

Fun in the sun.

Today I got to sneak out for a ride with my best friend while he was down from Los Angeles. We rolled out a bit after 10:00 AM and headed out into the East County area of San Diego, out through the rolling hills of Dehesa, where we tackled the challenging Dehesa Grade climb that is about 3-3.5 miles of steady climbing. Not only is it a challenging climb, it was also about noon when we got to it and it is an open and treeless climb. And it was H-O-T hot by the time we started the climb... so not only was I going up a hill (which I have explained before is not my thing- since I'm a sprinter), but I also had copious amounts of sweat running into my eyes and burning them. I was ecstatic to get to the top for our turnaround because it meant it was now time for my gravitational abilities to shine. I didn't touch the brakes or stop pedaling once the entire way down the climb and I would venture to guess I was going close to 50 mph for much of the descent, what with my 53x11 wound up pretty good.

I had been toying with the idea of going to the Manhattan Beach Grand Prix and racing tomorrow, but since I didn't pre-register for the event it is unlikely I would be able to get in anyway. The MBGP is one of the premier races in SoCal and has had some great names win the event over the years. It should be another great race this year with some really motivated guys there looking to win what is considered by many to be the SoCal crit championship. Winning the state championship is cool, but winning MBGP is even cooler. I'll be waiting anxiously to find out who pulls off the win this year.

Now it's time to pull Breaking Away out of the case and remind myself why I got into this silliness in the firt place (Dave Stoller rides a Masi in the movie... how cool is that).

Tim

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