Joe Mama

I rode on Saturday in the rain for an hour and a half and decided I had had enough road oil thrown in my face for the day. The last three weeks had been pretty high on the mileage chart so a shortened ride seemed acceptable. Besides, I was scheduled to ride with a member of the Tokyo Joe’s team on Sunday.

Sunday’s weather proved to be no better than Saturday. Tim (Tokyo Joe rider) and I decided to go out later in the afternoon since it was supposed to warm up and stop raining. At 2:30 I pulled down the driveway in rain and temps hovering around 43 degrees… so much for warmer and dryer. Tim informed me that he might be riding a little slow since he hadn’t been putting in too much saddle time with the season winding down. ALERT: A pro rider telling you they might go slow is like a member of Motley Crue saying they might just have one beer.

These words rang true as we started the 1800 foot climb up Lee Hill Road. I was seeing incline readings of 14% between the rain drop (not tears, I swear) on my glasses. Tim seemed to float up the road like he had a sail and I was sinking with the anchor. He was nice enough to circle around and tell me I was going well.
We finally found the top and were headed down back to Boulder. First we had to negotiate the decent on the rainbow colored oil slicked roads. Normally my descending is good when the roads are dry. Today I was grabbing brakes like a Cat 5 road racer with an inner ear infection. I thought I would get it out before Tim told everyone. Best to take my medicine straight up.

The rain seemed to be coming down harder and the temperature was dropping. Once we came off the decent we started picking up the pace to get home. Last time I looked at the Garmin Edge 305 we were cruising down the road side by side at 33mph! I couldn’t feel my legs so I just kept telling my brain to keep the legs rotating. The cold weather was like Novocain. I pushed with all I had to make up for my poor performance on the climb.

The weeks of hard riding had taken their toll. I was cooked. Going against my better judgment I downed four beers, a bowl of pasta, tortilla chips, a sandwich, handfuls of pretzels, a cup of coffee, a bowl of Kashi Crunch and a couple Fig Newtons. Yeah, I was a little hungry. I did pass on the ice cream. I spent the remainder of the evening crashed on the couch catching up with Entourage Season 5, On Demand.

Thanks for reading!