What a day! After the HOT weather earlier in the week the cooler temperatures at the start line were a relief, possibly ‘goldilocks conditions’?? (just right :)
The plan was to take it as easy as possible, save it all for the two KOM’s and don’t worry about the overall time. We lined up and shortly after that we were off.
It was really nice to have Claremont police stopping traffic for us, sweet! A full on support car was constantly checking on everyone, he helped quite a few people, that was really nice!
At the base of the climb we passed Bill Walton on his Frankenstein bike….not sure if he made it the whole way but he sure had a big smile on his face! Shortly after that Manny Prado (local pro and all around good guy) rode past with a small crew, I said ‘hey you are supposed to start in wave 1!’ he laughed and said they told him to line up in wave 3? He was laughing and joking and having a good time and still quickly disappeared.
Maybe halfway up the first climb we popped out of the clouds, skies were clear, some snow up top, and you could see it was going to be a perfect day
We made our way down GRR and then over to the awesome East Fork descent. Zoom-zoom, man is that fun! After that it was on the 39 back into town, the winds picked up there and it was a little rough but I continued the ‘in it to spin it’ mantra and stuck to a slow pace. Back in town we hit the rest station and geared up for the upcoming climbs. Eat, drink, repeat. :)
The start of the first KOM was not marked from what I could see, I saw the timing strip across the road so I knew it was ON from there. Hit it hard and it went by pretty smoothly, felt better and was faster than my pre-ride.
Then we regrouped at the Aid station for the grind back up GRR to Baldy Village. That thing never fails to deliver the whoop ass, more up than down for sure.
Soon enough we were at the village. We knew it was now time for the real brutality to begin. 5 miles yes, but 5 miles that you count down every 1/10 of a mile and pray for survival. Let the games begin!
Soon after a car stopped in the road and shouted out to a rider on the side ‘hey are you giving up?’ He replied ‘yup’ but I shouted out some encouragement and told him he had less than 5 miles to go and don’t give up now. I hope he got his wind back and made those last miles.
Further up the sun was beating down and I was sweating like crazy, it took everything I had to continue and not stop for a break. People were stopped and some were off their bikes walking. It was pretty brutal. I heard one guy stalled and fell over and crashed on the ground while climbing, crazy!
Thankfully soon enough there it was, the finish line. Yes!! I felt a little faint and had to rest for 5-10 minutes to get my wits back.
Then it was time for a ripper of a descent back to the start line. Sweet! Went by quickly and we hooked up at the bottom with a big pack for a fun ride back into town.
All in all an epic ride and will be really cool to see the TOC competitors rip it up in two weeks!
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