Well, day 1 is in the books – it seemed so much easier on the route card. There, it was a nice flat first 60 miles, followed by a few easy rollers in route to the town of Jackson. Course, nothing is ever as easy in real life as it is on paper.
We rolled out of thefantastic Hyatt across the street to the Capital Rose Garden where Bobbo was setting up for the requisite photo op. This happens every year, and every year we argue, tease, stomp around like children, and basically do our best to get Bobbo to the point that he will yell at us like he was back in to his early days at Sear’s Portrait studio, trying to capture the semblance of calm in some doting parent’s bratty 4-year old.
Still, he once again managed to do us proud – which shouts out that he’s the man to call on for that all important Christmas Card pic; trust me, he’d love to help you out (and could really use the work - it's been a slow year).
Once we were done glamming it up for our adoring fans, it was officially time to get the circus moving. And moving we did; just a couple easy miles down Capital Hwy we hit the bike path for a 25-mile jaunt along the American River.Though I think jaunt might not be doing the pace any real credit; we really flew through this part of the course, which was made even more fun as we dodged bikes, runners, strollers and the occasional tourist that just had to get one more picture of some silly flower – and needed to be standing dead-center in the middle of the path. Now, before you start to think we were riding with reckless abandon, fear not loyal reader, this bike path is actually for BIKES! The rest of the path users are supposed to be on their own portion, safe from the melee.
eally just trying to hang on for dear life). So here we were arriving at the first van stop, 30 miles into the day, and realized that Andrew was nowhere to be seen – off the back, alone and unafraid – and with a lot of work to get back on.
The next 35 miles were one headwind road after another – I swear, no matter what point of the compass we headed, the wind decided to play out it’s fantasy of that painted wagon’s “Maria”, continually shifting to another face shot. Still, the country was spectacular.
Along with the headwinds, like last year we experienced another minor issue resulting in lots of missed turns, wrong turns and stops where everyone pointed a different direction and looked totally confused. The first thought would be that Carter’s painstaking work in building exquisite turn-by-turn route cards must be off. But no, it’s just the pace and desire has gotten so high that no one pulls their route cards out to take a peek until it’s TOO LATE!
As to the competition, it heated up from the start, but some clear winners showed themselves; the standings as of day-one:
For both the Red and yellow jersey’s of climber and overall, Nathan “the destroyer” Spear showed th
at an entire year of focused training has paid off. He rode everyone off his wheel in a dominant display of strength on the final and toughest climb, bringing him into the Holiday Inn Express the clear winner.
The Green Jersey is hotly contested with the front runners all gaining points:
- Steve “The Lion King” Quinn
- Andrew “El Heffe” Lee
- and Paul “The Tard” Greubel
Now today’s blog will not be complete without a special shout out to Zach’s wife, Maurin, who celebrates her 29th birthday today. Though she refuses to acknowledge that the ToP is going on (this due to the fact that she wanted to be with us, the opportunity to smack down the majority of the peloton is almost more than she can stand). Sorry Maurin, our old and fragile egos simply can’t take it – but we wish you a fantastic birthday all the same!
- 91.1 Miles down
- 4367 Ft of climbing
1 comment:
I had an awesome OLD FOGIE FREE birthday weekend.
PS: Zach, honey, don't come home without the yellow Jersey.
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