Cycling Double Header

This past weekend was the cycling Double Header. It's two cycling events that ended up ont ehsame weekend over the years and there fore it's a double header - althouhg we found out they are techinically two events. IronGreg, myself, Adam and Jennn (with 3 n's :) )headed up to the Blacksburg area for the weekend.

Friday...
We drive to pacet pick-up. this is at a local hotel. Well I can't even begin to explain the way packet pick up was set up b/c I am not sure he organizers knew. the event was not expensive and it showed in our packets. they were grocery bags with a t-shirt and a map in it. Well, at lesat they are being...green? Next we head off to the camp site. Yes, I do enjoy camping. (and yes, I wore my faux pearls for the weekend). We sent up our tents and headed into Blackburg for some eats. After walking around main Street for a while we picked a grille called "Big Al's". This was an adventure in itself. All I can say is "I heard the meart part, but not the balls". just go with it and use your imagination. After a few hours to eat, we headed back to the camp and immediately hit the tents for some sleep. As we lay there it started to rain. It was so nice hearing the gentle rain drops pitter patter on the top of the tent. The sound of the river babbling in the background. Then the rain picks up - good thing we have the rain cover on! Then hooooonk hooooonk. screeeeeeeech. What was that? A train? I tell Greg clearly that cannot be a train and he replies well it's not like it will happen all night. so we go to sleep.

Saturday...
We wake up bright and early to head to the Wilderness Road Race - 38 mile route. But not before discussing the trainS. Yes, plural - trains. They were on both sides of the river. And there is a crossing- so they have to honk their horn. And it's curve so they screech along the rails. And did i mention one comes about every 20-30 minutes? Yeah. It was chilly, so we pulled up the arm warmers and headed off on the course. About a quarter mile in we all (about 20 of us) miss a turn - oops. (ok so greg did go the right way) As we continue on the ride we see lots of great views and hook up with a guy named michael. turns out he was the orignila RD of the Wilderness Road Ride. A native of Christiansburg, we added a little to the course and he showed us some of the sights. The silver Bullet enjoyed being back out, excpt she was quite squeaky to let me know she was jealous of my new relationship with Diamond. fianlly we found a SAG guy to grease me up. And then I was able to hit the granny gear on those hills. I learned about how much practice I need with hills. And that it's more important to keep cadence up. But I finsihed all 2500 feet of climbing. Afterwards I put on my old running shoes (I no longer like my nike's) and went out for a quick 20 minute run. I wanted to run longer, but my shins told me otherwise. Stupid shins.
Afterwards we met up with Dom and went back into town for wings then a campfire. No we did not sing songs, but we did make s'mores!

Sunday...
well the morning was not as cold and not wet from rain. And I started ot tune out the trains. Interesting. The guys all headed out for the 102 mile Mountains of Misery. Jenn and I cleaned up camp and then surprised the guys on a "lolloipop" part of the ride. They were surprised to see us the first time, but as they apssed again they were posing. Clearly this was planned. I cannot explain the pose - will post the picture when I receive it. It was classic. The ride ended at Mountain Lake. This is where the movie Dirty Dancing was mainly filmed. Unfortunately they were not playing the soundtrack at the finish line. We did notice a few of the sights and reminsced on a classic movie. The ride ends at the top of a 6 mile climb with an average grade of 12%. Yeah. no thanks. This ride was 102 miles long with 10,000 feet of climbing. gross. Adam was first to come in and behind him was Greg and Dom pushing it out side by side.