April 22, 2012

The day finally arrived for Lynne to make her assault on the Cheaha Challenge. The weather forecast leading up to this day kept change by the hour it seemed, unfortunately the last forecast was right when they said there would be lots of wind. As they gathered us all at the start Lynne seemed pretty calm and ready to go, but just like most events it was hurry up and wait. Being this was Cheaha’s 20th year they had to thank I think everyone who ever rode for the past 20 years….LOL

Finally we got the word to go, as we headed through town I was amazed at how mindless many riders were, trying to gain I guess those pressies seconds as they rode in the oncoming traffic lanes. Well at mile 3.1, YES 3.1 of 102 it caught up to a couple of the riders when an on coming car had to break hard cause of riders in the lane, one rider went into the ditch while the other yanked it back over into the peloton and of course causing a crash. I was proud of how Lynne handle all of this specially being the crash that followed was right in front of us. As we rolled out of the town of Piedmont it finally stretched out and we could settle in. The pace out to 78 was a good one and Mick and I had told Lynne we wanted to get her to rest stop 2 at close to 20mph avg, as we rolled past and turned to head into the park we were just over that and she was feeling good. Now for the work to begin. We had planned on making our first stop at rest stop 3, which is at the 33 mile mark and is where Lynne turned around last year. Rest stop 3 is at the top of the first tough climb in the park and the first barrier we needed to get her through, as we came to the top I looked at our average and let Lynne know we were at 17.3, she was excited to hear that and I think she started believing she could do this. We filled up and headed on, the rollers leading up to the next big climb just came and went and Lynne was handling them like she was riding in OMSP. As we started the climb up to rest stop 4, a nice lil 3 mile climb, Lynne seemed in a good zone and handling it good. About half way up we came around a slight right bend to find two riders that had to take a break from the climb, which hey not every body can make it straight up, BUT to be stopped in the middle of the road where other riders have to take extra effort to go around and oh yeah what about those things we call cars????  Lynne handle it well and pushed on. Finally we crested and as to our plan we rolled right through heading to the half way point. The reward of that tough climb was the relaxing down hill that was nearly 2 miles in length. We made it to the turn around made a quick stop and headed back. Lynne handled the climb back up to rest stop 4 now 6 great, we made a full stop reloading everything and catching our breath. It was around 1pm when we started down and the wind was at it’s highest levels as we were going down the long 3 mile decent I was several bike lengths behind Lynne when a Sharp gust of wind came from our right and I could had sworn it picked her up and blew her several feet over to the center, needless to say she was edge the rest of the way out of the park. We made our last stop at stop 2/8 loaded up and got focused on making the last 20 miles with no more stopping. As we turned up CR9 and headed towards Piedmont we realized that the wind was going to be head on the entire way back. Lynne kept a great pace and we started picking up other riders who on the up hills couldn’t hang so they fell in behind and let her pull them the last 15 miles (see above picture of two of those riders finishing behind us LOL). As we came back into town I saw that we could finish in under 7 and half so I start yelling at Lynne to push it, she jumped to it and finished the last two miles in great shape and with an awesome effort.

It was one of the toughest days I have had on a bike, but being able to ride with Lynne & Mick and help her accomplish this made it well worth it.

GREAT JOB Lynne!!!

Tagged: LOL, Lynne Mick, OMSP, YES