It's a Beautiful Day for a Ride!

To St Augustine

Today was the last day, and it is quite bitter sweet. I would have to say it is a little more bitter than sweet . . . .

It was a beautiful, warm, sunny day, and we had a good 70 mile ride. There wasn't too much to say about the ride other than the epic race we had early on. A couple of days back, we met some other XC riders (Side note - they had a van and a driver, and the driver was a very nice lady who owned and operated a beautiful 'eco-retreat' in Panama City. If you're looking for a nice vacation, seriously check this place out http://ranchodecaldera.com/) who were on the same route as us but they had a van carrying their gear. We were all going to get to St Augustine the same day, so we were watching for them. After about 15 miles, we saw them about a mile or so ahead. Of course, we picked up the pace and chased them down. Just as we caught them, they stopped at their support van for a break/food/water. It was the most anticlimactic race, and we were slightly disappointed.

We kept riding, and soon we stopped at a gas station for water and food. Just after we left the gas station, one of their riders caught up to us and passed us as if we were standing still. Naturally, we would have none of this, and thus began the race of 'loaded' versus 'unloaded'. For the next 10 miles, we were all pushing 22 mph with occasional 'surges' by either us or our 'competitor'. I think this was the hardest I rode for the entire trip. Finally, it was down to me, Milena, Gunnar, and Rick (the others, including Frosty, couldn't keep up . . . just kidding). Rick rode up next to the guy and asked if he wanted to slow down. At the same time, he waved us around him and motioned for us to sprint as to drop him and Rick sprinted away himself. I guess after this Rick was going to slow down and take it easy, but I must have missed that. Now we had about 30 feet between us and the guy so I started treating this as a race. I told Gunnar to sprint for about 30 seconds and then drop back and keep it fresh in the pace line. We did this for about 5 miles, and the distance between us and our biker friend kept growing until we couldn't see him anymore. Then we saw their support van on the side of the road, and we stopped and waited for everybody to catch up. They got in and we all joked about it and took some pictures.