Ready to Ride

June 8-13, 2014
2014 Route Summary: 471 Miles

www.ridetherockies.com

As a one car household, there are times when it can prove to be a bit of a challenge.  Owen had a birthday party to go to in the middle of the day, so I decided to ride to Boulder and make today a sort of prologue stage.  I had to meet a teammate for assistance in registration and told him I should be there around noon.  I left the house just before 10am, giving myself just over two hours to ride the 36 miles route I'd plotted out to Boulder.  The route I ended up doing is here-->

http://mapmyride.com/workout/599158005 .  DO NOT ATTEMPT THIS ROUTE.   I lost my intended route shortly after passing through the downtown and spent the the next two hours weaving through Denver, Westminster, and Broomfield trying to find my. I went up and down, left and right, though industrial parks, road construction,  neighborhoods, commercial strips, around an airport and through the Flatiron Crossing Mall complex.  At one point, I dead ended at a wide stretch of Boulder Open Space and decided to just try riding my road bike over the single track mountain bike trail that looked like it went northwest in the direction of Boulder.  It did...and then turned left toward the mountains...and then turned left again so that I was now heading southeast toward Golden. Fortunately, I eventually intersected and E-W road and headed west toward Hwy 93.  By some miracle, I finally arrived the Ride the Rockies registration area at Fairview High School in Boulder at around 12:40pm.  What an idiot!

When I showed up at registration, it all got very real.  I was really going to ride this thing.  I just needed to pick up my jersey, wristband and bike numbers and would have everything I'd need to be on my way.  Lot of folks (out-of-towners I assume) had already set up their tents for the night out on the football field.  Inside, other folks were settling into the gym, the indoor option for those not using tents or hotels.  The idea of spending the night packed in a room with dozens of smelly, noisy, possibly crazy people doesn't appeal to me much and hotels are pricy, so I've opted for the tent thing.  Just not tonight.  Tonight, I'll enjoy one final evening in my over soft bed.

As I mentioned before, I will have the honor of riding with the Davis Phinney Foundation.  The last thing left for me to do in Boulder was to attend the team dinner at a lovely Italian restaurant named PastaVino. We enjoyed an excellent meal, met the Foundation staff and also met some of the other 31 riders on the DPF team.  The team was kind enough to let Rachel and Owen join me.  This is always good for me as I'm quite shy and probably would have just sat by myself like some kind of mute weirdo for two hours otherwise.  Owen was lucky enough to sit right next to Ron Kiefel at our table.

Kiefel is a seven-time Tour de France racer, Olympic bronze medalist and member of the United States Bicycling Hall of Fame.  Kind of big deal.  Owen and Ron swapped riding stories and showed off bike crash scars.  It was pretty cool.  

At this point, I'm packed and ready to go.  But I have one very silly last bit of obnoxious name dropping.  The Davis Phinney Foundation is kind enough to do our laundry along the tour so that we can interact with normal people and not offer them with our odor.  Our laundry bags have are names on them.  But mine had someone else's name too, which had been crossed off.  My bag was originally for Connie Carpenter-Phinney's bag.  She won the gold medal in the cycling road race at the 1984 Summer Olympics in Los Angeles, as well as twelve U.S. national championships. She remains the youngest American woman to compete at the Winter Olympics.  It is a lame and nerdy thing to get excited about, but, hey, that's me.  I love my laundry bag.

Okay, let's ride.

www.davisphinneyfoundation.org