brothers

I never know how things will go on the Acacia Park ride.  Today, a smallish group showed up, twenty riders or so, and we rolled up Boulder and onto Platte under sunny skies with a brisk south west wind coming from the backside of Cheyenne Mountain.  It was beautiful.  I don’t mind the wind; it keeps the little guys in check most of the time.  With no mass, they don’t last long pushing against a headwind at 30 miles an hour. 

Chatting with the other riders, lately more regular than myself, I catch up on who has a new bike, why they went with regular Dura Ace rather than Di2, what kind of deal so and so got at this shop.  A little guy sitting next to me, maybe fifteen years old and racing for a pro shop in town, is talking about the rigors of racing Cat 1 and Cat 2 men.  He works really hard in our group, but I wonder how the heck he gets to race Cat 1.

Brian, the owner of Devinci bikes, gets a flat just past our turn onto Platte.  ‘You OK, Brian?’  ‘Sure go on without me.’ And we do.

I’m on the front or near the front as we go down Platte. There are two small hills, not much really, but enough to test folks in the group.  Who is breathing hard?  Who is pedaling squares or standing up a bit too early on the climb?  I feel great and coast up the hill to scrub some speed so I’m not sticking my nose into the wind.  Looks like a good riding day for Chris.

Things happen in our peripheral consciousness all of the time without us really noticing.  A psych prof once said that three million stimuli are registered by the brain every minute and we are only conscious of a small fraction.  Somewhere on the three mile stretch of Platte, part of me noticed that my rear tire was squishy, but the part running my conscious self didn’t get the message.  I wish it had. 

A sign for Peterson Air Force Base points right, off of Platte and we follow it.  There’s a light and the group comes to a stop.  In one half mile the hard riding begins when we turn right on Marksheffel road.  Position is important and I let myself drift to the outside and take the front.  I have a clear view of Marksheffel traffic coming from the north; I’m positioned to come through the corner at full speed on my own line and lead up the hill into the wind.  I plan to make everyone suffer for the next ten miles.

At the apex of the turn, my rear wheels slides about two feet.  At last my conscious brain realizes I have a flat and I remember the squishiness from a few miles back.  I’m on the outside of the turn, so I just raise the right hand and slow to a stop.  A one inch finishing nail is stuck through the tread of the tire.  This is a first.  I know Brian is coming up and look forward to talking with him as we roll into the wind.  Instead of just one, slightly portly, rider coming up the hill, there are three. All had nails in their tires.

We make a compact group of four and begin our hard pulls into the wind.