A perfect Bike Friday

Friday was Take Your Bike to Work Day, one of my favoritest days of the year. The city was one crazy biking bottleneck with 23,000 people getting into their summer commuting groove. It took me 90 minutes to get to work because of seeing lots of bike peeps I knew and just enjoying the fun. One of the highlights? Going over to take a picture of the BTW Banana and realizing that I KNEW the banana:

(That's one fine banana you got there Brian :)

After a day of commuting in the sun, it was time to head to the track! My Spidey-sense told me that the roadies who have been dominating our pre-season races would be melting in the heat at the Wenatchee stage race this weekend....and I was right! There were only 8 of us for the women's race, but it was all track all the time and by far the most fun night of the season. No worries about sketchy riding or cranking around at 30 m.p.h. like it's the U.S. National Crit Championships. You could feel the positive energy in the pack. Everyone was SO comfortable and confident because we knew each other and trusted everyone's skills. There was lots of strategy and track tactics, hard sprints for the points, and since we're lazy trackies, lots of slowing down to 10 m.p.h. after the sprints. It was laughable to a point because any other night with the roadies and we'd still be barfing up a lung after the sprints, but it was our night so we played by our rules and it felt damn good.

I'm delighted to say that I finally found my groove with this night of racing. Having these girls around me instantly brought me out of my shell. A few days earlier I was ready to sell all my stuff, but within a few laps I knew that my faith was renewed. I tried out some fun tactics, got screwed on others, and learned a ton. My fitness felt strong so I know I can go harder next week! I loved hurtling towards the finish of the very last race with some strange grunting noises coming from within and hearing Donna Smith scream "GOGOGOGOGOGO!!!" from the bleachers. She came up to me afterwards with a big smile and said, "You really had your GRRRRRR on!" Yes I did and it was AWESOME!