So for the past few days I've been thinking about the write up on my 2012 Dirty Kanza and came to the conclusion that it was kinda boring...so I thought about it and here are some of the thing I thought were funny or just whatever.
1. Anytime I've ever rolled to a start line, there's always this tension from the other racers and being serious about what is about to take place and there is nothing wrong with that. At 5:45 in the morning I was surprised to feel a little of this as I rode past the front of the group on my way to where the mere mortals ride...also known as the back!! I found that interesting...even at the wee hours of the morning the racers had their game faces on.
2. About an hour into this melee I'm at the front of our little train rolling along at the prescribed 14 mph. At several points along the way the gravel roads are more or less gravel double track so there's no echelon riding to escape the wind and if you want to switch tracks you really have to pick you place to do so. Anyway as we roll along, we pass a group of riders that were from Utah...I think...so about the time I get to a female on my right from this group, she decides to stand up to pedal and maybe change tracks. As soon as she was fully standing and her left leg reached to bottom of the stroke, her pedal came of and she proceeded to wad herself up right next to me, ended up getting gravel in her hyde and have her wheel ran over by a fellow rider...I almost pooped 'em!!!
3. Last year as I rode along in my own personal hell, off in the distance I could see a gravel road going up a pretty sizable climb. I say to a teammate of mine, wow look at that hill!! The pic above this paragraph is from the top looking back at where we had come from. He says yeah, that's Texaco hill, it's a 3 mile climb and that's where we're headed...I wanted to cry...it was about then he rode away from me because I couldn't go more than 10 mph at this point. Fast forward to 2012, low and behold...Texaco hills beckons me...I rode up it without as much as a whimper this year. Ah yes...to ride smart and actually have fun!!
4. As we rode across the top Texaco hill, I spy with my little eye a photographer. As we got closer, the Kodak courage welled up in me and out came the wheelie king...yep...popped a decent wheelie for the lens!! Shortly thereafter we started a nice double track descent. Pretty close to the bottom there was a cattle guard, it was raised a little higher than the gravel. With me carrying some good speed, I blasted some functional air over this steel grate...it was SWEEEEEEEET!! Between that and the wheelie I was pretty much feelin about 12...Luv it!!
I thought this was a good pic showing the rolling nature of the Flint Hills, if you look closely at the hill in the distance, there was a group of motorcycle riders touring the gravel roads taking a break...can you say easy way to ride gravel?!?!
5. If you read the first DK blog, then you know about the parking of the GF's car at the first check point. That story has a bit more to it. So here it is...when we decided to do the first check point thing, we realized that we would have one bag left over to put the stuff we needed to keep and to put our street clothes in once we changed into riding duds. This presented a small problem...what do we do with it?? My girlfriend called and talked to the hotel manager and had it squared away. The hotel would lock it up for us and we could get it on our way home. I wasn't too keen on this idea but whatever.
Race day morning we are getting ready to roll to the hotel manager when I see a rider that i know well enough to ask if his wife could haul our bag to the first check point, they say no worries, WOOOHOOOOoooooo!!! No strangers rifling through our stuff!!
The race kicks off and away we go, about 3 or 4 miles in I see this guy on the side of the road and he says he popped a spoke...bummer...on we roll. At some point during a nature break I see him go riding by, cool, up and riding!! After riding for about 4 hours, it suddenly dawned on me that he is ahead of my little group, which means he will be in and out of the first check point before I get there, which also means his wife will have to wait on us...D'OHHHHHHHHHHHH!!!!!! There's about 3 miles to go at this point of revelation, so I tell the GF I'm gonna hammer out the last 3 miles so the nice lady who helped us doesn't have to wait any longer than she has to...
So I drill it to the end passing a handful of riders on the way, this made me laugh, mostly due to wondering what they were thinking as I went blazing by. I roll into the check point, find her and apologize for making her wait. She said no worries, he had been gone about 15 minutes and it would only take her about 40 minutes to get to the next check point...HOORAY!!!
I saw this on a mail box, thought it was cool.
There ya go now ya know...it's a little more interesting...
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