Wednesday, February 10, 2010

February off to a Fine Start!

While rain has relentlessly buffeted the West Coast and the Gulf, and the East Coast's snowfall would make Colorado ski areas envious, we've continued our frosty but rideable winter.

Fresh back from an end-of-January 200k a week ago, the "usual suspects" put in another great effort to start off the month. Ken "KC" Heck said he'd like to ride the Kersey Kick, and was joined by John Klever, Leslie Sutton, Jane Yant, and yours truly.

Oh, and Bob Barday rode the first few miles with us before branching off on the Windsor Wanderer perm (which went great, by the way).

It's important to get back to basics at this time of year. This includes uncomfortable moments where you say to yourself, "This, too, will pass ... I hope!" - in this case incipient frostbite starting out. The rubric that randonneurs "travel on their stomach" is also a rando value, illustrated below.

Here, Jane, John K., and Leslie tuck in to the repast the Kersey Texaco has to offer, everything from Cheetos (the orange-yellow food group) to their wonderful home-made burritos (the tubular food group):

In true rando form, you'll see the gang is relaxed but ready to go, jackets and helmets in place. A good lesson for us all. Unaccountably, the group had tailwinds or quartering tailwinds all day, despite changing directions on a regular basis in order to finish back where they started. How strange is that? But no one was complaining.

At the finish, KC celebrates a victory over the frost and short days:

Meantime, Leslie presents John K. with the savored Dark Chocolate Achievement Award:

... and everyone, still garbed for a day that didn't warm up all that much, celebrates a finish with the sun still gleaming!
John K., Leslie, Jane, and kindred overachievers are headed down to Texas Hell Week in March. We can only imagine they will arrive tough as nails and ready for miles, based on these rugged 200k's!

-jle

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