Ready to roll...

...and roll, and roll, and then roll some more. Tomorrow I'll do my first Century Ride on a road bike in the Fireweed 100. My goal is to finish in 6 hours. That would require me to hold about a 16 mph pace. I figure with stops, that's not unreasonable.

The bike is all set up and ready to go. I changed the tire that had a hole in it, changed the stem so that I could reach the handlebars comfortably, and cleaned and lubed the chain.



Now I just need to pedal. I have no idea what to expect from this ride. I expect that at some point along the way I will get bored. Pedal, pedal, pedal. Pavement, pavement, pavement.

As you can see, I am so not a roadie, but have had some fun riding a road bike around town this spring. It will probably be a once and done thing. But who knows, I've been surprised before.



It's one of those things that if you cycle in Alaska, you just have to do at some point. Last year, I saw how much fun Brian's relay team had. I really wanted to do the 200 as a relay, but alas my teammate dropped out at the last minute.

I'm doing the 100 solo. I didn't even know what the difference between Road Race and Solo meant until this week. I thought solo was solo and Road Race meant you were a part of a team that can draft off of each other.




But I found out that you can ride the Road Race by yourself and just draft off of anyone out there. I don't even know how to draft and to be honest riding that close to someone and ESPECIALLY having someone ride that close behind me makes me want to puke Raspberry Gu all over the place, so that it sprays back into this jackasses face that is riding my bumper. Oops a little bit of road rage there, sorry.

I'm doing the solo.

We're headed up to Sheep Mountain today after work. Hopefully some of the smoke clears before the race tomorrow morning. After I'm finished racing I'll be driving to Valdez to meet Team Muschi Schmerzen and my mom (who is going on a boat ride) at the 200 finish line.

I'll report back after the weekend!