As it was quite warm earlier this week I went out for a bike ride on the Mirror Lake Highway. I went for a 20 mile ride and had 3 cars pass me, making it more like the “Mirror Lake Myway”. I was wearing the “Butts, Sweat and Gears” jersey that my friend Bill Johnson gave me as we were packing up his truck to head to Logan for the Lotoja bike race. It reminded me of the race so I figured it’s about time I wrote a recap.
I originally intended to ride the race with 6 others from my former employer Backcountry.com but injury, lack of training, and fear narrowed the group down to just 3 of us. Ironically, come race day only one of the threesome was actually still employed by Backcountry.com, that being John Thomas who is the bike buyer. Tim Meikle had moved on to Omniture and myself, well I just moved on to me.
Since we (the trio) rode in the picnic category our start time wasn’t that critical so we set off at 7:14am with my friend Jim Kane and his crew of riders. We determined that should anyone fall back or we lose Jim’s group that the three of us would stick together to the finish.
Leg 1 – Logan to Preston
The first leg of the race was flat and quite fast. Initially I was in the rear of the pack but the yo-yo effect was too much to bear so we made our way to the middle/front where we sat behind a group who were determined to break wind, so we let them.
We passed a number of other start groups leaving me wondering if we were going too fast. I knew though that if I dropped from the peleton that there would be no catching up so we pressed on with speed.
The morning air was crisp with a slight mist hanging over the fields as we raced by. It was beautiful. I ate a banana and a Koka Moka PROBAR along this leg, making sure that despite not feeling hungry that I would force myself to eat all throughout the race.
A large group of us pulled over just shy of Preston to relieve ourselves so that the food exchange would be seamless. Going into the food exchange I was sure to down all my water knowing I’d be getting two new bottles from John’s wife who was the champion of the day as our support crew.
Leg 2 – Preston to Montpelier – over Strawberry Pass
The food exchange was pretty quick and we left with Jim Kane’s team and started out of Preston. A small climb stretched out the peleton followed by a fast downhill. After a few rollers we turned off the main highway and started a gentle climb along a river that I’m sure Tim was thinking would be a perfect location to fish.
The pace was still brisk but as we neared a little incline Jim said to me “this is where it’ll blow up” and that’s precisely what happened. The entire peleton broke up and Tim and I hung onto the front group for a little bit longer. I was feeling good but knew that there was still a long ride to go. The weather was
perfect with a little tail breeze as we started to climb. Tim started to fade a bit and since we had agreed to stick together I continued to spin with ease and chat with other riders as they went by. I felt bad for Tim as he was having a bad day with stomach aches and lack of energy. Usually a very strong climber, it was not his day.
As we came up to the false summit Jim caught up to us and gave me a run down of the group. I told him about Tim and after a couple of miles he headed up the last climb moving ahead. It was about then that
Chris Williams, of the Butts, Sweat and Gears relay team came roaring by, offering up a big hello as he raced by.
I rode ahead to the water station to fill up Tim’s bottle and as we were there John arrived. A very skilled rider and sprinter John admittedly said he’d be slow on the climbs. It was working out fine so we headed up the last climb to the Strawberry Canyon summit as a trio.
Heading over the top I donned my arm warmers and we raced down. For some reason I was a bit nervous and noticed that Tim wasn’t going his normal mach 5 speed downhill so I figured he too was nervous. Coming out of the canyon the next couple of miles were rolling but primarily downhill and we kept our pace fast.
Just then a group of 3 tandems came roaring by. In typical rookie fashion I simple watched them go by, admiring the speed at which they passed. Right in front of me was John who immediate stood up from his saddle and sprinted off to catch the wheel of the last tandem. I knew that if I didn’t go immediately I’d be dropped. There was not time to think so I was up and after a frantic push I caught John’s wheel where I rode for quite some time.
In the dash to hang onto the tandems we lost Tim and as we passed many a solo rider I realized that Tim’s fate was likely sealed. After a few miles John, myself and a couple of other riders in the now 20+ strong peleton took turns breaking as the tandems got into a rotation with us, or rather we got into a rotation with them. It felt good to be leading this group when 2/3 of the peleton would not break wind.
We rolled into Montpelier to refuel, the last 20 miles being some of the funest riding I had ever experienced.
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