Monday, July 7, 2008

ID3 Roanoke Weekend

I thought about making this post three separate post at first. But I think the continuation of the story and the overall fun of the weekend will be more apparent in this one post. Please stick with it. I'll let pictures tell the majority of the story.

My wife and I left early Friday morning for Roanoke. The kids were split between two aunts (one in Maryland and the other in North Carolina). I was really looking forward to this weekend. I love going out of town for bike racing (expensive, so I have to pick and choose).

John Gray was the only other teammate to make the trip. With family in Roanoke the choice was easy for him. He has been racing very strong and this Downtown style race was going to be a test for him.



He did very well in a fast race. The back completely disintegrated behind him and he ended up only having to race against 11 others for a top ten spot. And tenth it was. That's another step toward his upgrade. Great race.

Now I was nervous about my Cat 3 race. It was pretty much the same way as the 4 race. Fast and broken up. I rode the front for the first few laps and then moved to the back (which only was 13 people off the front by this time). I finished 11th in my race. I loved that course. It was very tough but a lot of fun.



That night Jenni and I hung out with John and Allison at her sister's house in Salem. We drank beers and played horseshoes (mainly in the dark). Lots of fun, great company.

Saturday...no hill climb for me. It was off to the Wine Down the Music Trail wine festival (or something like that). We put the address in the old VZ Navigator on our kick ass new phones and off we went. I was starting to get nervous when the road turned to this:



My gas tank was getting low and I was pretty sure no one would here the screams if we run into this:



Luckily for us he was at the wine festival. It was a great time there. A little rain. A lot of wine. Oh yeah...your team:



Sunday. Another great course. Although I am not a fan of hills. Once again John did an exceptional job. He was in third position on the final lap of a very fast 4s race when his wheel folded and tire blew. He managed to stay upright even though he was going 30 mph when it happened.

I did not have a good race. The hill hurt me for sure. The part that hurt the most was the S-turn. I don't know what was wrong but I ended up getting shredded off the back. Oh well. It was a good course and an excellent job of promoting it. Plan on attending next your for those that missed it this year. It is some serious good racing with a lot of potential.



Stay tuned for more pictures. Allison (John's wife) took a lot of pictures as well. When I get them I'll post more of the actual racing.


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