Our race down in Borrego Springs (24 Hour World Championships) went off without much fuss - no big drama, not that much to write about, even, other than having a lot of fun, meeting some new friends (Dusty, Robert, and Kathy), hanging out with old friends Brian and Dan, and actually riding fairly well.
The van even did its job without any glitches - we'd had some problems maintaining power to the electrical system at the last race. A little bit of time with the multimeter and a few feet of much bigger cable later my popsicles stayed frozen solid.
The Schlitter bikes feel like old friends now, too - zero issues with the bikes at all on the course. We went with simple, reliable equipment, which for us meant wide-rimmed wheels and no disk. We had no flat tires, so I guess that appeasing the butyl gods by offering up a mph on the flats worked. Or something. We pushed hard, but not crazy hard, and managed to put down 10 more miles than last year even though the daytime temperatures were pushing 100.
We were feeling so sassy about the whole thing that we put out a press release - and the "Lifestyle" editor of our local paper picked it up. We're smart enough to know that old farts riding 438 miles in a day doesn't qualify for the "Sports" section. ...here's a link to the article. Many thanks to Vic Armijo for providing photos.
http://www.times-standard.com/lifestyle/20161115/cycling-for-a-cause
As the article says, we've chosen Food For People's Backpacks for Kids program as our fundraising charity. I've seen some of the downstream effects of kids growing up worried about food and it's pretty awful. Backpacks for Kids isn't a complete solution, but - it's something. My hope is that the kids who are reached understand that their community is here for them.
Our "off season" is essentially over. We started in on weight training this week - early mornings in the gym. And when I say early, I mean EARLY - because we get it done before Bill's 6AM spin class. RAW the two following seasons wore out our stable of stationary trainers, so we've got shiny new ones. Hopefully we won't need them ALL the time because I really do love cycling our local roads.
Next stop RAAM. Crew recruitment continues. Many of the organizational details are in place, with more to come.....
