RIDING YOUR SCRUNCHIE OFF: IMPROMPTU RACE

With the beautiful weather hitting our coast last weekend and the half of PE streaming onto the roads for the annual Herald Cycle Tour we decided to head down to the beach front Primi Piatti.  A lazy afternoon of coffee sipping and big burgers was on order while watching the people enjoying the surf and sand.  We also saw some cycle legends refueling with some pasta.
    It was a round trip of 16km.  But disaster struck 400m from home.  OK, I'm exaggerating.  Lida was pedaling gently across the road when a stray chain link got jammed in the rear derailer. The hanger and derailer ended up being bent.  I had to replace the hanger.  It turns out this is not covered on the warranty.  This was very disheartening on a bike that is 2 months old and hasn't even seen the best part of 100km!

Thats not right!

 
I got the bike back yesterday and we decided to go for an gentle ride. An 4k ride and then return via the valley back home.  Nothing serious, just getting back into things.  Arriving at the parking lot where we enter the valley we were confronted with loads of MTBers.  Some of them asking us if we are here for the race. Not sure if they thought we looked like competition for them.  On closer inspection it turned out to be a weekly thing called "The 1 hour madness". It's hosted by one of the local cycle shops, Cyclo Pro.  You get 1 hour to ride a 3k course as much as possible.  Lida was super excited to do this! Even some slight persuasion from my side to reconsider wasn't enough to break her spirit.  We entered and decided that completing two loops will be an achievable target.

We started off quickly and enjoyed the fast sweeping turning single track. By far the most technical we have done. We were leading the slow pack! There was one major climb and Lida owned it on both loops!  We finished our two loops in 35 minutes and decided to call it quits, seeing that we still had to get home.  What a good way for Lida to finish her 25th year on earth.  I would have done another one trying to keep up with the fast guys, but my crank bolt was coming loose.  Another not so good advertisement for the Scott Aspect 40.  I had to free wheel most of 4.5k's back home, with Lida pushing me here and there. Quite a sight for some I'm sure.

Our total distance for the day was 15km. The same as the race I'm training Lida for.  That race will be much less technical than this one and flat as well. So Lida is well on her way!