Bakers Dozen and a Solid 3rd Spot aka Old Guys Rock!

Outfit #1

Bakers is always an adventure. Could be warm, could be cold, could be windy and cold, could be windy wet and cold...etc. This year was about as close to perfect as possible. 75° temps, dry, albeit maybe too dry, but dry none the less. I always wonder if I should camp out or just drive down in the am. So far drive down is winning. The whole family-1 is part of the crew. So 5:45 we get up get stuff packed and go.

This year, I teamed up with fellow SSer Blake Bricker. I met Blake a few years back at some of the local racers, but just left it at that. Last year we talked a bit more and decided that we would do Bakers as a male duo, only because we are males and cannot ride in the female duo-stupid rules. We could have done the geezer group, but whats the fun in that? 2 44 year old men givin it to the youngins-so against the youngins we go. Blake is always right there in the top, so it was a great match up; plus we are both old, but he has better hair than me-I hate him for that!

Outfit #2-Yes that is a geared bike!

So, Blake went out first and pulled in some great times. We decided before hand to do double laps at 16.6 miles for 2 laps-instead of the usual one on and one off deal. I went out and pulled in some fast times as well, only my 3rd lap was a bit more exciting. I still dont know what happened, but I am typing this out with a man girdle around my mid section due to my high speed impact with mother earth. It hurts like !@$#. Doc says ribs may be cracked but hard to tell from the xrays. Might be? So he is being cautious and making me wear the girdle. Anyway, we continued on through out the day meandering between 3rd and 4th. Still feeling pretty good at this point, but my 7th lap was dismal; felt faint and ill, somehow still managed a good lap time. I sat down, had 4 slices of pizza, 2 sodas and was back to normal. I rode the Superfly HT for my 8th lap to help get back to SS state.

Lap 16... almost home

At this point it was time for some night riding. The dry conditions made for some pretty insane and somewhat dangerous conditions, especially if there was someone ahead of you kicking up dirt. Like opening your eyes underwater at the waste treatment plant-dont ask. We had 19 laps at this point, I knew we good for top 5, so I didnt go out for the 20th-main reason was that the scoring booth had not been working for a while and it was hard to tell what was going on. It is at this time-the final hour or so that strategies start playing out. You have to be in by 9:59:59 to do a final lap, if not you are done. Results were emailed today and we ended up in 3rd by 6 minutes...whew. I ended up with a 32/17 setup for the SS's and 42 x 11/21 Dura Ace cassette for the geared bike.

Blake was super fun to race with-though we only saw each other briefly. He is a great competitor and a new found friend as well. Hopefully we will get to team up for some other events. Sandie is Blakes SS partner in crime and ended up in 4th place in the female solo cat. Both are just super fun to hang with. 

All in all, it was blast. The course as always is very technical and fast. It always beats me up, but I love it. Training has been a huge plus this year and really could see a difference in my endurance side. I ended up with 72 miles and almost 6 hours of dusty, dry and wonderful miles, Looking forward to next year already. Thanks again Blake! Eh, he's to smart to read this crap.