damn rabbits......

So all in all it was a freaking tough but fun race. The fast route was all it was cracked up to be, especially in terms of endurance. We got to see quite a bit of the orlando metro area as the race encompassed a decent amount of the downtown and surrounding communities. I have to admit, I was not in the best physical condition for this longer race due to self inflicted behavior on my part and it showed. Also, I'm not a big fan of set course races as I tend to prefer the check point / make your own route format but this was a really cool twist on a race and overall it went smooth. Except for a few turns which in my opinion needed to be better marked (more on that later), overall it was very well done and Michelle and I had a blast running it.


Some of my "special moments" from the race yesterday:

- Rolling up Lakemont Ave with the pack. It was pretty cool seeing that many riders running that bunched up. Looked the the Tour De France for a hot minute...

- The S curve on Aloma Drive. It never gets old hauling ass down that hill..

- Riding through College Park. I never ride out there that often so this was a welcome treat. The only thing that kind of sucked about it was missing the turn from edgewater to Lakeview St that took us on to the north end of orange ave. I never saw a sign anywhere around there so I kept straight on edgewater. Lucky for me the guy behind me knew we had to turn there and shouted at me as I just passed the turn. I know of a bunch of other people that missed this turn as well. This was the first turn I felt that should have been labeled better.

- Riding down orange ave through downtown. Always lots of fun playing in traffic like this. Sort of a tangent here but one thing I noticed yesterday was how chill most drivers where for some odd reason. I only had one guy yell at me yesterday and this was on orange and robinson. We blew the light and I guess we held him back 20 seconds from making his way to wrestlemania. Said something about wanting to drop kick us or something to that effect. Just a byproduct of the media he consumes I guess...

- Puking! This is a highlight for me as this is the first time anything like this has ever happened to me in a race. As I mentioned earlier, I had done some partying earlier in the week so my physical stamina was not the best. Lots of drinking and cig smoking caught up with me. Now fast forward to half way through the race and I'm rolling down orange past michigan and I feel a bubbling sensation in my stomach and my mouth gets all watery. I looked behind me and noticed the guy behind me was a good bit behind me so I spit to clear my mouth. All a sudden my eyes start jittering and up comes a small bit of vomit. I spit it out, started skidding to slow down, make a hard right in to a bank parking lot, jump off my bike and in to some bushes and let it all go! I finished, washed my mouth out with the water I had with me and look up to see some racers ride by. Spit out the water, collected myself then jumped on my bike and I'm on my way... Damn I love these races!

- Missing the turn at Gatlin. This sucked huge because myself and the peeps that I was riding with at the moment ended up riding another 3 miles down orange to the intersection of oak ridge and orange ave. There was no sign on gatlin to turn and speaking with one of the rabbits afterwards, the guys working the gas station checkpoint where supposed to tell us to turn on gatlin. We never heard anything like that and this pretty much took us out of the race at that point. Lets just say that riding back up orange ave to gatlin, against the wind was the biggest mental challenge I had during the race. Really sucked the momentum out of me at that point...

- Jared telling me about his wreck with Amanda. Dude looked like he went a few rounds with Ali. I'm calling you Fat-Lip from now on s0n! :)

- Fixed Gear Trickery in the Beta parking lot. Pete and Corey are always raising the bar in this area.


Again, I had a lot of fun on this one. Dunno if I'm making G-ville but Fixed Fight 2 is definitely getting hit. Once again, great job Metha, Nick and everyone who helped with organizing the race. Big shout out to Patrick and the Beta crew for the brews at the end point. Looking forward to some of the other things you guys have in store later on in the year.


ez!