We raced the Grasshopper this last Saturday. There were 7 Hubsters out there at the start out of 245 racers. That means that we made up almost 3% of the field. Quite a showing. Lets see if I can remember everyone. From left to right…Claire, Handsome Jeff, Troy, Melinda, A1, Chaz, and Eric the Fireman. Here is a link to the loop. Claire and I were on a tandem as well as A1 and Melinda. For those of you who aren’t familiar with this race, it is considered a “cross” race since about a quarter of it is on dirt. It ended up being just a little over 50 miles long and had 5000 feet of climbing.
| Waiting for the start |
This year the race started out by heading up Coleman Valley Road. There is nothing like a race that starts with a 10 yard warm-up before turning up a 15% grade and climbing around a 1000 feet. Needless to say, we were separated from most of the solo bikes by the time we started heading down Willow Creek Road. We had plenty of encouragement from the solo riders as we were heading up the climb.
By the time we hit the coast and started heading back inland for the rest of the race, the pack of racers had thinned out. The solo Hubsters were up ahead somewhere, but the two tandems were sticking together. We worked together like a finely oiled machine on the flats and ate up the climbs like a thinly sliced piece of chocolate cake.
| In the shadows on Willow Creek |
The final climb up Willow Creek was a doozy with plenty of cramping going on. Claire, much to my dismay, decided that we needed to stay on the bike for the “two sisters”, which are a couple of very steep pitches on Willow Creek that leave plenty of riders lying on their sides or walking. We cleaned them.
We finished in fine spirits at the top of the climb and then coasted into Occidental after having to fix a front flat on our tandem.
Claire and I rushed home, showered, and then met some friends for a night out in San Fran. We didn’t get home until almost 2 in the morning after seeing the Old 97’s in concert. Needless to say, we were a little tired the next day at the shop.
| A1 and Melinda before the start |