Ridin' high.

Imagine one of those old school roller coasters... like the Screamin' Eagle at Six Flags over Mid-America or some wooden rickety thing straight from Coney Island.  Remember how your momentum from one downhill flew you up and over the next hill?  Now picture those hills far enough apart so that you don't have even the semblance of momentum and instead have to get out of the coaster car and push it up the hill.  And instead of a roller coaster, you are pedaling, pedal-pushing, out of the saddle, cranking it like a peppermill, willing your chain not to break.  You are beginning to understand what the "Sublime Sublimity" was like.

The course began with a series of four such hills, the last of which was paved with chip-seal half-way up.  Chip-seal is the cycling road surface equivalent of walking/running in sand. Oh but the best was yet to come.  After three loops (and four turns on the roller coaster), the course turned toward the finish line... at the top of a hill so steep it had earned the moniker "Flypaper".  Many people physically got off their road bikes and walked up the last of the hill... maybe the first that their cleats had ever touched pavement.

I raced the women's 4s and it was good.  Brenda Spinney (teammate on PPBS and rockstar timetrialist), Dawn (from VeloShop),  and I made a move early after the roller coaster section and escaped for 3-4 miles before being caught by a group of five women.  All along the fast, slightly downhill, into the wind backstretch we formed a sweet paceline with 1:00 pulls.  By the time we turned the corner for the second lap and I looked back over the fields in the direction we had come, noone from our group could be soon.

At the first set of roller-coasters, one woman tried to shift two-gears at once while pedaling, and became a victim of chain-meets-spokes (been there, King's Valley 2008, no mercy!).  I jumped off the front and in the confusion another woman got left behind.  And then there were five.

One more time around and then there were three: Mackenzie, Dawn and Me.  We were going for the last round, and I could feel my quads misfiring every time I rose out of the saddle.  Dawn bid farewell after an impressive ride.  I tried to suck Mac's wheel for a hill or two, but she built a 10 second lead and never relinquished.  I left my broken spirits and added to the creakiness of my bottom bracket with me never-say-die attitude stuck to the Flypaper.  I didn't walk across the line, but I crossed it going 1.2 mph.

The only thing that would have made this race less painful and more fun, was to have Heather along for the ride (pun intended).  Next week.  Banana Belt #1...

And here's what I won (not really, but Heather and Jim were in Portland and stopped off to get me a little treat at Cupcake Jones, a shop that makes me salivate each time I think of it!):

Cupcake:  "Velvet Painting" -  red velvet cocoa cake filled with vanilla pastry cream and iced with cream cheese icing topped with a candied edible rose petal.  And all mine!!!