While the rest of the team was up kickin’ it in Mt. Hood, I was abandoned down in the lonely state of Colorado all by myself. This is about how exasperated (I don’t really know what that word means) I was:
As you can see, I was looking rather bored. So, instead of hanging out at school, I decided to take a nice trip to the mountains, to battle who else but Floyd Landis himself. The stage was set at the Teva Mountain Games in Vail. The pro’s set off 1 minute ahead of us in the mountain bike race, and about 200 meters from the top of the first lap, I saw a dude riding a BMC cruising up ahead of me. In my excitement I flew up the climb and proceeded to see how good this ProTour rider really was. Floyd attempted to ride a nasty 180 degree turn over some slippery roots, and was promptly falling off his bike. In an epic moment of glory I bunny-hopped over his body. Well, not really. He told me that, “I shouldn’t have tried that, that was dumb, go ahead.” In my excitement, I left out a thank you and simply showed him my back wheel. And I never saw him again. Until the next day.
Following my epic domination, I rolled up to the time trial the following day with an air of confidence. This is an artist’s rendering of about how good I looked:
As you can see, I share a unique quality with the rest of my team. We all look ridiculously good. Except probably Allen. Anyways, I set off flying my beautiful Rio Grande skinsuit, and even more attractive Orbea Ora bicycle. I hit the first flat section and I got really, really slow. Pushing the 56 into a headwind is not very much fun. However my über-aero position helped my breeze through the wind and up the mountain. As people struggled to climb Vail Pass, I simply zoomed by them in my aero bars, happy as can be. Unfortunately my time was not so happy, as my headwind turned into a tailwind for the pro’s who started an hour later, and I was beaten into the ground (figuratively, of couse). I could not beat Floyd twice in one weekend, and I was forced to settle for a draw with him. Until next time Floyd….
