Recap and Such.

Well it's summer and man do the days, weeks, go by fast!  Toss in an old computer that likes to act up and I'm not on my blogging game.  So this is the short-n-sweet version of things.

Saturday was the WestSide Dirty Benjamin gravel race.  As predicted it was hot and sunny.  I handled the heat pretty well.  Early on the front group was down to a decent size of 6.  I was fortunate to be in this group.  It was pretty ho hum for many miles.  No attacks, no chasers came on, and no one dropped.  Eventually the heat would take us down to 5 riders.  Ian H. was the marked man.  He had been doing a lot of the work and still looking strong.  I was with Charlie and Ted, the only team with numbers up front.  It started to play out as a road race.  Ian was stuck doing a lot of the work, however he didn't seem to be fading!  With about 15-20 miles to do we were going to put in some attacks.  Send a rider off and make Ian chase them down.  Once caught, if caught, we'd send another guy.  But heat, busy roads to cross, and such didn't allow this to go down as planned.  Charlie was the one putting in the attacks.  The final attack came within 5 miles of the finish.  We had to take a grassy decent from a paved path to a gravel parking lot to a single track trail in the woods.  Charlie hit the gravel parking lot in full on attack mode.  The gravel was soft and thick.  BOOM!  Man down.  Everyone stopped, Charlie was hurt.  Ted told Ian to go on and finish as he earned the win...strong dude!
It was bit scary with Charlie.  He knocked the wind out of himself so communication was limited at first.  He managed to get up and decided to roll into the finish.  On paper I got 2nd on the day but in reality it doesn't matter and if the group had stuck together and raced it out I'd have been lucky, and happy, to get 4th.
Charlie is one strong dude!  Turns out he broke is collar bone, a few ribs, and some tiny bones on the spine!!  He's fine and already on the road to recover but damn does that suck.  Now who's wheel am I to suck?!

Sunday I got out for a 50 mile spin.  Not sure what it was but that was one of the best 3 hours I've had on the bike!  It felt so good to just get out and cruise...even with the wind.

Monday several of us were to make our annual trip to Duluth and mountain bike for the day.  However many of us got busy with life, etc.  The trip was put on hold.  Mike and I did some early morning work at the shop, met up at my house, and headed out for a day on the road bike.  It's been way too long that Mike and I have gotten out for a ride together, last year sometime.  It was so good!  We ended with 7 hours, 128 miles.  Once again the Grey Eagle/Swanville area is some of the best for riding, both road and gravel.  Worth the time it takes to get out there.

TNR is a no go for me today.  Heading out soon for a couple hours.  East wind means a nice, flat ride!

Ok, not so short.

Later.