Well, for those of you road nuts out there, I got a chance to go to the US Pro Cycling Championships held in Greenville, SC this past weekend. Man, oh man.
The day started at 0700 with the Palmetto Peloton Project, a fundraiser for cancer research. The route was a 21.9 mile circuit which included Paris Mountain (same road course as the pros). For those of you who don't know, Paris Mountain is a 2.2 mile climb with approx 1000 ft elevation change and 10-12% grades. My BP meds have screwed up my heart rate somehow so I spiked early. I ended up stopping 4 times to let it go back down, and this was in a 30/25 combo. Average speed up was about 8 mph (pros do it at 16). The downhill was great though and well worth the effort going up. First pass reached speeds of 43.5 mph with a good u-turn thrown in. We did a second lap but I still had to stop 4 times going up the mountain. Downhill run was maxed at 45 this time. It was a blast (except for the lady who turned left in front of me while I was running 40 mph and she was on her cell phone). The ride back to the start has some real grunters with grades approaching 18% in spots.
Once we got back, we changed and watched the Pros go at it. I got to see George Hincapie, Levi Leipheimer, and even Tyler Hamilton up close during the check in. George and Levi signed a few autographs. Tyler kind of ignored the crowd. He doesn't have a sponsor and looked pretty rough. Levi is tiny. George is huge for a road rider. The pros did 3 circuits downtown, 4 circuits up the mountain, and then finished with 3 more circuits downtown for a total of 110 miles. We were right at the barricades during the 3 downtown trips and those guys are so fast. I mean that if I stuck my hand out (beside causing a huge crash), I would have lost it. Didn't get any water bottles from them though, we did try. Wouldn't have been able to tell who it came from anyway! We moved around a bit after that to get some pretty good views of the riders coming back into town and then moved to the finish line. There was no slow for these guys.
The field started with 110 rides. 30 finished, with of course, Levi taking the jersey. George was second, 1:11 behind. Levi made his move on the last climb of the mountain. We had an absolute BLAST and plan on bringing the family next year. Fun for all!
I didn't buy into all the hype for sale but did get Saul Raisin's book, Tour of Life. I was standing there and this young kid was talking to some lady. I looked at him, at the book cover, back and him, and finally realized that it was Saul. I was able to get him (and the author) to autograph it for me!
If you're interested next year, this event has my
.
The day started at 0700 with the Palmetto Peloton Project, a fundraiser for cancer research. The route was a 21.9 mile circuit which included Paris Mountain (same road course as the pros). For those of you who don't know, Paris Mountain is a 2.2 mile climb with approx 1000 ft elevation change and 10-12% grades. My BP meds have screwed up my heart rate somehow so I spiked early. I ended up stopping 4 times to let it go back down, and this was in a 30/25 combo. Average speed up was about 8 mph (pros do it at 16). The downhill was great though and well worth the effort going up. First pass reached speeds of 43.5 mph with a good u-turn thrown in. We did a second lap but I still had to stop 4 times going up the mountain. Downhill run was maxed at 45 this time. It was a blast (except for the lady who turned left in front of me while I was running 40 mph and she was on her cell phone). The ride back to the start has some real grunters with grades approaching 18% in spots.
Once we got back, we changed and watched the Pros go at it. I got to see George Hincapie, Levi Leipheimer, and even Tyler Hamilton up close during the check in. George and Levi signed a few autographs. Tyler kind of ignored the crowd. He doesn't have a sponsor and looked pretty rough. Levi is tiny. George is huge for a road rider. The pros did 3 circuits downtown, 4 circuits up the mountain, and then finished with 3 more circuits downtown for a total of 110 miles. We were right at the barricades during the 3 downtown trips and those guys are so fast. I mean that if I stuck my hand out (beside causing a huge crash), I would have lost it. Didn't get any water bottles from them though, we did try. Wouldn't have been able to tell who it came from anyway! We moved around a bit after that to get some pretty good views of the riders coming back into town and then moved to the finish line. There was no slow for these guys.
The field started with 110 rides. 30 finished, with of course, Levi taking the jersey. George was second, 1:11 behind. Levi made his move on the last climb of the mountain. We had an absolute BLAST and plan on bringing the family next year. Fun for all!
I didn't buy into all the hype for sale but did get Saul Raisin's book, Tour of Life. I was standing there and this young kid was talking to some lady. I looked at him, at the book cover, back and him, and finally realized that it was Saul. I was able to get him (and the author) to autograph it for me!
If you're interested next year, this event has my
