It all started Friday with Christine's eventful return from a business trip in South Bend, Indiana. Christine had managed to adjust her flight schedule so that she would arrive in Denver at 4:30, and give us plenty of time to get to Grand Junction for a pre-drive of the race course and some good sleep. But as is the case lately, United Airlines sucks. I mean SUCKS! Her flight out of Chicago was delayed, because the plane that was in their gate had a "mechanical" problem that kept them from leaving, and kept Christine's plane from getting to the gate. Okay, Chicago is a big airport. Is there NO other gate that Christine's plane could use? And what's up with United and their "mechanical" problems. That's the same crap they told me on my trip to Savannah.
So Christine finally got into Denver 1 hour and 20 minutes late, and then came the task of retrieving the luggage. Oh wait, they decided not to put her luggage on the plane. The flight was apparently over the weight limit, so they had to ditch some luggage. And in the extra hour and twenty minutes they held Christine at the Chicago airport, they didn't seem to think it would be useful to say "Hey, we decided we couldn't fit your luggage on the plane, so don't wast another 40 minutes of your time at the Denver airport watching the luggage carousel go round and round." But I digress...
We arrived at our hotel in Grand Junction, and I was pleasantly surprised at our nice big room. It was at the end of a non-smoking floor (yay!), so I think it was a little bigger than the normal rooms. There was a ton of room for our two bikes and our abundance of gear (minus the baggage that United decided to hold on to). Another thing that was cool about this hotel is that pool was open 24 hours. I wish more hotels did that, because sometimes I wake up a 3AM and would really enjoy a good swim.
Saturday was the Mad Cow Classic road race, and it was Christine's first bike race. The timing of the race worked out great, because she started shortly after me and finished shortly before me, so she wasn't stuck waiting around too long. It was a good hard race of about 50 miles with lots of climbing that I think it would have suited me well had I not been doing a lot of climbing intervals the past few weeks. Going up the first big hill my legs were on fire. I just couldn't push hard enough to keep up with the lead pack, but I was going fast enough to drop several other people. I spent most of the rest of the race with a group of about 5 people, and we were doing a decent job of working together to pick up and pass other riders. It slowly dwindled down to 3 of us, and the other 2 finally lost me on a long false flat. I just didn't have the gas to push any harder, and once we hit the downhill I didn't stand a chance of catching their two-man paceline. My legs were so tired on the last few climbs of the race that each quad was cramping up at the top of every pedal stroke. Of the races I've done so far, I'd say it's my favorite. It was a really good course, the scenery was great, and so was the weather. Most of all, I'm excited that Christine rode in the race.
After the race we ventured over the the Colorado National Monument. We weren't up for much hiking so it was mostly sight seeing from the side of the road (just like the good old family vacations). The views were great, and the road was pretty fun. I'm glad I put the summer wheels back on my car.
We also did a little exploring in downtown Grand Junction.
My next bike:
Grand Junction had some cool artwork, like this buffalo:
And this really big mountain bike:
I also found the girlfriend store, but they wouldn't let me put Christine on consignment.
I really like the first picture with the buttes in it. Were you mostly on a steep mountain side the whole time, looking out at that valley?
ReplyDeleteYou should frame the last picture. Quite a happy moment. Maybe she was passing gas at that point.