Drew Carey: Welcome to "Whose Line Is It Anyway?," the show where everything's made up and the points don't matter. That's right, the points don't matter, just like if *Nsync and The Backstreet Boys traded guys.
A couple weeks ago E and I headed down to Rio Grande, OH to ride in the inaugural Flying Chicken MTB TT that takes place on parts of the old Farmhand Classic XC course. The derecho of 2012 left the course littered with trees and subsequently cancelled the event for the year. Then Bob Evan's farm was sold, trails were in limbo, and the race disappeared from the calendar. Fast forward to now and the mayor of Rio is an avid dirtbag mountin biker. The trails are now part of the town or college, I can't remember right off, and Matt and the gang are trying to get folks riding them again. The race was about a 6 mile loop and was self timed (via Strava). Entry money was to benefit the local veterans association.
Rio Grande is only a half hour from our house. Our plan was to head down around 9 am. I don't set alarms on the weekend and am usually up by 7:30ish anyway. But this was just a few days after getting back from vacation where our flight was delayed due to a hail storm and we got home at 6am followed by a couple hours of sleep and then off to work I go. So when I woke on that Saturday morning at 9 am, it was a rush to get some food and coffee, the bikes loaded up, and out the door. Then we ran in to a road closure and had to find a detour. We basically got out of the car, paid fees, signed waivers, put on shoes/helmets and hit the course. Warm up? Nope. Just pin it.
Time trials are fun. The biggest hurdle for me racing MTB has always been traffic. Time trials limit that so I can go my pace. They started us 2 minutes apart. By the end I had passed 6 riders. I rode my carbon fiber XC race bike. (That thing is so fast, see Review: Redline d660). I ended up with the fastest time of the day, "winning" the event. Ethan surprised me and ended up 3rd for the day. No podiums, no payouts, no bragging. Just ride really hard. My kind of race, the kind where the points don't matter.
A side note:
Bombtrack dropped photos of their newest adventure bike, the Hook ADV. Looks remarkably similar to my Redline D440. Guess I am ahead of my time, a trendsetter if you will. Feel free to send royalties my way 😁.
What's spinning:
Death Cab For Cutie dropped a new album. Did you know that Ben Gibbard is an ultra marathon runner?
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