Where have all the racers gone?

[connie]

As of Tuesday afternoon, we had three Cruzbike Chicks signed up. Connie Swinson, Maria Parker, and Emily Royer were prepared to repeat our previous Three Amigas performance. After a desperate plea for help, Ken Holzhausen couldn’t say no. Bridget Brown had been pondering taking a rest day, but changed her mind and cast her lot with her fellow Chicks. Finally Maria was able to talk her beloved spouse Jim into trying one more time to get “Betsy”, his disagreeable trainer to play nice. Things were looking good for our rugged crew. Ken spoke for his teammates when he said “Bring on those pesky hill climbs! We’ve got mountain goat in our genes!” Truer words were never spoken. Hmm! I feel the urge to chew on a tin can. But I digress.

As we lined up in the pen, Emily noticed that there was a big gap between the Chicks and all the other teams. “Why are we so far back?” There was no acceptable explanation except to say that Connie isn’t good at math. She sadly miscalculated the lead times we needed to give our worthy opponents. We want to make the chase a challenge. This was definitely going to be a challenge. Oh well, let’s just give it a go and modify our goals. Number 1– complete the three laps in 47 minutes or less. Number 2 —see if we can catch anybody. Number 3 — have fun. And, of course, don’t die.

After Jim kept falling asleep several times waiting for the gate to drop, we woke him up in time to crank up the watts and take off. Alas! Three times was not the charm. Betsy refused to obey and decided her racing days were over. As Jim mourned over the loss of his beloved trainer, Maria rallied the troops. “Not to worry, Jim. This one is for Betsy!” Off we flew on the deserted race course determined to win this one for Jim and his sweet Betsy. We faced our first challenging hill climb (one of three) right out of the gate. Channeling our inner mountain goat, each racer dug in and, of course, pedaled like crazy up the KOM. Before we had time to complain about the brutal climb, we opened our eyes and beheld a very welcome banner before us. Well done my feisty goats! But, could we do it two more times. We shall see. Every Chick was giving his or her all even on the downhills. There was no coasting for these determined racers. Lap one completed and once again the evil KOM dared us to take him on. We’re not afraid of you! And with that we flew up the hill with ease. By the time climb number 3 came, we were seasoned veterans of the hill climbing brigade.

Final results. Five very weary but satisfied Chicks crossed the finish line at 46:53 — 7 seconds to spare. Teams passed — zero. Was it fun? You bet! And I’m happy to report nobody died — except poor Betsy. We’re off to get flowers to put on her grave.