The Great Pumpkin Ride 2012

Standard pre-ride pose.

I had no plans of riding the Great Pumpkin this year, I didn’t even know when it was. Sure it was one of my favorite rides from last year, but I just haven’t been that exctied for road bike riding lately. When my mountain biking pals Joe and Drew told me they were going I was like, “shoot count me in.”

The GPR was as good as last year, big turnout, great stops, excellent course, low traffic, excellent weather. I invitied along a guy who has just recently started riding and honestly was expecting him to bonk out about 40 or 50 miles in. He made the whole ride and finished exactly 2 minutes slower then me even after Joe and I went nuts and rode the last 7 miles over a 20 average.

Drew is all about peace.

One funny story from the ride. At one point we slowly passed a couple of riders working together, man and woman in matching team racing jerseys, unlike many people, (myself included) you see wearing team jerseys these two actually looked the part. Together they still weighed less then me and their Cervelo Soloist racing bikes looked very fast. This was on a very long very gradual climb of around 1 or 2 percent for what seems like miles. Shortly the man and woman went back by us with Drew jumping ship to them and beaming as he rolled by us.

Joe was having none of that and locked on to their wheels. Drew was only kidding and pulled out draft and Joe started encouraging the woman to keep on racer guy’s wheel as she was slipping off. Racer guy slowed down and we slingshoted around them. A few minutes later I was surprised when racer guy went sprinting around us, I jumped on his back wheel and hung on. 30 seconds into his attack he relaxed and turn his head back, as he did he spit. He watched wide eyed as his spit flew directly into my face.