Perfect Gentleman

In lieu of my crappy race reporting, I usually let the photos do the talking. Our photographer for the day was John Bayley and accomplished hill-climb and long-distance racer. I even retained some of his original witty captions. I already posted my un-detailed race report here. The official Rapha race report is here. You'll even see my tush in the first picture there. What an honor. Thanks again to Pedro's for supporting us, Cort for organizing us and the rest of my teammates-for-a-day, Dave, Tom, Roy and John for being such good company on a long day.

I really can't hold all the details of the race in my head for that long. It was a blur of dirt and pavement and suffering and flying downhill. And flat tires. Somehow that all translate into a fun day in my head. I did forget to mention in the last post that everyone wanted to drink the pickle juice at the post-race barbecue to reload the sodium in their bodies. Really, it was that sort of day.

The day started off so promising.

Me, Dave, Tom, John, Roy and Cort. Looking as good as we would all day.

Leading the charge. We're making great progress at this point and there's another team in sight just up the road.

The lower slopes of Mt. Riga. If we only knew...

Now we're getting to know Mt. Riga. But I'd have like to have gotten to know her with some lower gears.

This climb isn't so bad -at this moment. There are no pictures of the later dirt section because it was too steep for John to snap photos.

Maybe we should go out for a second lap?

In case you were wondering about the inspiration for the title of this post, it's a combination of the name of the race and this:



Incongruous? Maybe. Stuck in my head for a lot of the seven hours? Yes.