I better write quick I'm falling almost a week behind here. Sunday we rode the course the correct way, minus the out and back. According to the forecast this was "supposed" to be the best day, but ended up being the worst. We had dark rain clouds approaching us as we rode out. We rode away from them heading of course through OK falls, Oliver, and then Osoyoos. We lost one person immediatly as he didn't want to ride in the rain. Who could blame him, I don't think any of us was too keen on starting out in the cold and possibly rain. I think I probably would have cancelled the ride if I didn't have cda so close. Anywho I needed this ride and was just starting to feel strong so I sucked it up as did the others.
We had a pretty good pace coming out of OK falls. Brad took off and I put my head down to chase him down. That's apparently when Greg looked up and saw us too way up the road and he gave chase so we started riding together, us three. Almost into Oliver is where I got my third flat of the weekend. This time it was a tiny piece of glass. I had to pick at it with my finger nails to finally get it out, jus barely peeking through the tire. Everyone got to pass me in that time so I got the new one in and filled up and headed into Oliver. The sun was out at this time. Had to take a detour as there was a fire to one of the buildings on Main street.
Greg came back for me and we teamed up to reel everyone in. We worked it together, not super hard, but a solid tempo and caught everyone back by the time we hit Osoyoos. Here the dark clouds were again threatening us, we made a brief stop at the Husky station and headed on. Turning away from the clouds to ride up Richter towards other rain clouds, hmmmm nice!!! I was NOT wearing enough clothes to keep warm through rain. I was soooo dreading the wet. But somehow we managed to ride through or around most of the rain. We encountered wet roads on the descent so got a bit wet, but barely any rain drops. On the rollers it was Greg, Trev, Mark, and I. Mark would bomb the descents and us lighter folk(Mark is 6'6) would catch and pass him on the ascents, and we continued this game through most of the rollers. On one of the last ones I decided to push it so I managed to gap the others. Got to the top of the hill and put my head down for some tempo stuff. I came by this guy that wasn't in our group and he decided to draft me most of the way to keromeous(spelling?). I didn't mind I was just so happy to feel strong at this point on the course. The wind hit us just as Trevor and Greg caught me just before the out and back section of the course. Here Trevor and eventually Mark decided to take it easy to the Bear fruit stand while Greg and I went back for the others. Here the wind was stronger again as we saw another set of dark clouds just over Yellow Lake Pass.
So we got everyone together again at the Bear fruit stand and started out again. This is where finally the rain got us. Not a down pour or anything, just drizzling. I didn't mind at that point as we only had about 45k to go. Greg and I dropped the rest of the guys and climbed Yellow lake almost side by side. It was fun, but hard. My stomach was a little upset though and the legs were starting to feel the earlier effort. Oh well it looked like Greg was hurting too as he wasn't talking much to me anymore so we climbed in silence for the most part. We'd test each other a bit, but niether of us wanted to let the other go. Finally near the top I managed to get a few meters on Greg. I thought he'd be the one to hurt me on this climb, but I think I managed to surprise him a bit. Later he told me he was about to call a truce just before I shifted up. hee hee I'm such a dirty player. :P He went down and made sure everyone was still with us and we all descended back into Penticton. Mark and Trevor first, then Greg, me, Curtis, and Dusty later.
The Yellow lake descent was crazy, we probably went through like 3 dif. weather systems on the way down. Rain, dry roads, then really wet roads, sunshine? Everything!!! we had to be careful!! Once in Penticton the sun was out and it felt really good to warm us as we rode along the canal back to our hotel. We had a tail wind so the sun felt so good on the back. Another day in the books, aprox 160km. Some of the guys did a quick transition run, others went to go soak in the lake to try and recover for tomorrow's long run.
DP
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