Saturday, August 18, 2007

Mountain! I dont need no stinking mountain!

Okay, a few posts ago I said I was through riding in the mountains this year. Of course when you live in upper East Tenn they're kinda hard to get away from. Today was supposed to be a flat to rolling sort of ride, but as we met at the starting point the other stronger guys were meeting there too and wanted us to ride with them over to Iron Mountain. I didn't want to go but reluctantly agreed.

Boy did things start to heat up about seven miles into the ride when the pace started to quicken. In the words of my buddy Bart "somebody started handing out some fresh one's" long and short of it I shot out the back like an exploding pustule. Three of us regrouped at the back and turned up Sciota Road. I was determined to get to the mountain I didn't want climb before the faster guys who went a hillier route. So I hammered (well it was hammering for me) down Sciota and up 107 to the base of Iron where Bart took over the pace making up the climb. The three of us rode at a steady pace wondering if we were ahead or not. At every turn I expected to see the other guys come screaming past us on their way down. Well, turns out we did get in front of them. Brad Price went flying by me about half a mile from the top followed by Jay Westbrook and Mike Stewart.

After regrouping at the top we did what I love best about mountains, descend. That's about the only thing I can do well enough to stay up with the faster guys. We went down the climb like a Peregrine falling from the sky onto it's unwitting prey. Going down fast, FUN. Regrouping again at the bottom, the screws started turning down HWY 107 (33MPH) somebody started handing out fresh ones and things blew up. I found myself and two buds Mike and Bart off the back again. Just as well they turned up Sciota and we went down the old Erwin Highway back to JC and arrived a few minutes ahead of the other guys. They are very strong.

It was a good ride , rode a little harder than I wanted. Bring on cyclo-cross, I don't need no more stinking mountains!

1 comment:

Zack said...

Perry can be given credit for the fresh ones. Because the desiel is also the mentos man and doesnt care to give you a fresh one.