Crushed...

Paula, the Professor and I had a most excellent Chicky ride tonight. I'm telling you, the boyz of the world better look out. After tonight, I'm convinced that we are some evil Chickys. HA HA HA. You think male pride is hard core, you've not seen anything like tonight. You know the old saying, "there's nothing like a woman's scorned." Well that needs a slight modification and can be completely applied to what transpired in West Salem tonight. I wouldn't say we were scorned, but we sure were inspired. Toss the bitches a bone, because it was on!

We met at Green Hill Park for a planned road ride to Camp Roanoke/Spring Hollow Resevoir and back. Paula beat Anais and myself there as we got held up in traffic on I-81. Once we were rolling, we got a little warm up on the greenway then headed out on Harborwood Road. There were two guys rolling out around the same time as us. One shorter than the other, but both seemingly very nice. I took up the lead for the first part of the ride and stayed there for about 15 minutes, then Paula took over. This was much easier for me this week without having previously ridden from PHHS.

We got to the sharp right hand turn where the road goes considerably up. At this point, the guys passed us. I'm not sure how far back they had been on the road up to this point because I don't like turning around to look on my road bike. Anyway, I fell back to the back of our threesome pretty quick. The bigger guy rode on by saying something about the hill not being any easier to run up then the smaller guy rode up next to me and struck up a conversation. Like I said they were nice. I said something like, "I don't plan on getting off and running." Short guy asked something about having ridden here before, I replied once. He said something about well there's this hill and that, blah blah blah. All the while, I'm thinking, "I'm not so stupid that I've forgotten this road," but you know his ego was probably in need of a fluffing. He continues to mutter on about "they have all this stuff in the catalogs - clothes, shorts, parts etc, but they never have motivation. If they did, I could buy plenty..." I'm said, "well to find motivation, you have to look inward. It's all up to you." All the while, I've noticed that Paula has decided to crank out a good pace up the hill and is pulling away from tall guy. I'm chuckling inwardly. I mentioned something to short guy about this not being my favorite bike to ride. He replies, "oh you're one of those off-roadies." I was like yea, so he continues to plant his foot farther in his mouth, "you can't get those girls to go ride with you there." Me, "um, well we're taking a break tonight. We all race mountain bikes." Him, "oh?" Me, "yea, you see the on up there in front, she races single speed and she's good." Him, "really, well, I might have to get a mountain bike." Me, "you should, it's fun. This is more challenging, but mountain biking is a lot of fun."

By now, we've all reached the top of the climb. 2 guys and us three Chickys. Not sure of what was discussed between us Chickys at this point. I know Paula was cautioning Anais about the descent ahead, and the debate over which order we would ride commenced. The guys went on their way, I went next. I decided about halfway down this section to close the gap on the boyz. And I did. :) I think it surprised them, as I caught them looking back when I was about three feet behind them. HA HA HA. So as we continued to zoom along the flat I stayed close enough to them to remind them I was there, but just far enough back not to disturb their fluffy egos. We all had to stop for a train, and I beat Paula and Anais there by just a little bit and was grinning when they rode up. I think Paula knew what I had been up to and just smiled. I said something like, "you knew I was going to have to cross that gap?" She nodded, and said "yup, and there was no way I was going to let them beat me up that climb." Evil, I tell you we are E V I L. Oh but wait, there's more.

After the train goes by, we all bounce across the tracks and continue on. So after making a left hand turn somewhere along the way, the boyz got a bit in front of us, maybe a 10 sec gap or so?!? I was riding next to Paula and heard her say something along the lines of they can't get away. I said, "do you want to catch them?" She was like, "yea, let's..." I said, "ok" dropped the back down a few cogs, grabbed the big chain ring and started turning the cranks. Paula jumped on my wheel, and we caught them rather easily. Again, you could just see their shoulders drop when they realized we were back! I think at this point we were stepping on their egos because Short guy says, "you know there's an alternate route to this ride. Instead of going to the Camp, you can go almost all the way back to 460 and take another road that is flatter." What was he trying to insist???? Huh, whatever dude. One of us said, "oh that's ok, we've got a plan." So at that point, they went straight while we turned left to head out to Camp Roanoke. We laughed at Paula when she said, "I bet they are glad we're going a separate way..." HA HA HA!!! That was some funny stuff!!!

Our ride continued on and we ended up at Camp Roanoke. We stopped for a brief moment but didn't stay there long as there were bees swarming around us. We decided to try this hill that Warren had mentioned to Paula. Why not? It was one of those things - it's there, try it. I rode as much as I could then said forget it when I was in granny on the front and it was getting harder. I looked at the GPS data since I've been home and it says the grade there is like 11%. We decided to add this to our list of things to try again.

We had a great ride back to Rt 11. I had fun catching Anais then finally hung out at the back as we rode back through Wabun. I missed getting my foot clipped as we turned onto West Main, so I got behind the others a tad. I caught up eventually and had a bit of zip left in me, so as soon as the road went to two lanes, I went around Paula to take the lead back to the park. I think we were all having fun on this ride! I know I was!!!

Once we got back to GHP, we were laughing and enjoying replaying the ride - saw a few friends from the past along the Greenway then went in search of the new singletrack. We rode it! Yes, on our road bikes. It's a nice path and rideable on skinny tires! Eventually, we would call an end to the ride, but not before having a great time. The laughter and comraderie was awesome. Oh, and as Anais and I were leaving the park, we saw short man pulling out in his truck. Of course, we had to laugh and waved enthusiastically to him. You could just see him kind of sigh and wave back. I think his ego deflated at that point. :) CRUSHED, YUP, by three, count them, THREE CHICKYS who just happen to like "off roading" better.