Jamestown Adventure

This is just a quick note to relate a recent ride that I did on Father’s Day. It was a quick trip to Denver for the Denver Century, and to see my dad. Although the entire trip was an adventure I just wanted to relate how much fun the rides were, and they went something like this.

So the day before the scheduled ride, Dean and I decided to go on a little ride. It was something just to stretch out our legs and for me to get things moving after the long car ride the day before. The ride started out in Boulder and we rode up the highway towards Lions. Before arriving at Lions was turned west and started up a valley towards the small town of Jamestown.

The initial part of the ride totally wore me out because it was a gradual uphill that I really didn’t pick up on because it was so gentle. I just thought that I was really out of shape and must have a brake rubbing. Dean was cruising along and really keeping the tempo high, that was until he had to wait for me to catch up.

Finally, I got a break when we caught up with a larger group of about seven folks who were riding along at a good pace. We’ll unfortunately for me, they were just waiting for one of their pack to catch up. Once, he caught up they took off. Dean went with them and I didn’t catch up until we all turned to head up the valley.

On the way up the valley things were really mellow, at a slower speed. I really enjoyed it, but after a while got kind of bored and decided to see how well I could push the tempo up the climb. So, I passed the group and with Dean right on my wheel we started going up. Because I don’t get many opportunities for great long climbs out in Kansas, I decided that it would be fun to see if I could drop Dean. We always have a little bit of a game to see who is in better shape. Generally it’s pretty even, with both of us redlining the other during the rides. Dean usually is in the better shape, but I still have fun giving him a run for his money (we really don’t bet though).

I was working really hard at keeping the tempo up and was eventually at my max heart rate (or close to it I would guess). I couldn’t see straight and was almost drooling Every time I looked back, I would see Dean just hanging out on my wheel. After a long time of this, Dean pulled up on my left shoulder and I barely mumbled a question about how far to the top. Dean responded that it was about two miles and then proceeded to pass me like I was standing still.

I couldn’t believe that he was totally hanging on my wheel the whole time and then decided to take off and leave me in the dust so near the top of the climb. At that point I was too exhausted to respond, so I let up on the throttle and decided to take it easy but at a steady tempo to the top. After a few minutes, I realized that Dean was starting to come back towards me. He was gradually slowing down just enough that I was catching him.

He got closer and closer and I thought hey, this just might work out. However, just as I realized that I might catch him – the first buildings of Jamestown started to come into view. The official finish to the ride is in front of a café near the top of the climb. I saw it coming into view and decided to go for it. I stood up on the pedals and climbed as fast as I could. Just as I rolled up to Dean’s shoulder he looked over and saw with a huge shock that I had caught up right for the line. It was awesome. We both pulled over and got off the bikes laughing really hard. I almost couldn’t breath because of the altitude, heart rate, and because I was laughing so much.