Best. Ride. Ever.

I had the freaking best ride ever this weekend with my buddies Brandon and Matt. Matt got some new Mavic wheels, and was super excited to ride, so I think I fed off of his excitement quite a bit. Plus, it was low 60's, cloudy, and the leaves were just perfect. It rained just a bit, so if you know me, you'll know this is my kind of weather. We rode about a 25 mile loop from Downtown Denver into Golden (through the Coors brewery, man I love the smell of hops!).

We had a little climb on a trail, and just as we were about to hit the base, Matt told me that he typically does a Mark Cavendish sprint from the bottom to this covered bridge about 300 yds up the hill. Brandon was just in front of me, and Matt was behind. Brandon is by far the superior cyclist of the 3 of us, so my whole goal was to hold his wheel. About half way up, my legs were screaming like they've never screamed before, and I decided I wanted to pass Brandon. I moved to pass, and tried to hammer, but legs were already red-lining. So I tucked back in and just kept pedalling like mad. We made it, both sucking air, and looked back for Matt. No Matt. I turned around, and see him walking up the hill, chain in hand. He had hammered so hard he popped his chain. So we rigged him up so he could limp the mile or so we had to go to get into Golden. We came up on this little bike shop called Peak Cycles, and man, these guys were top notch. They were more than willing to lend us a hand, and even shoot the breeze for a few. Probably the nicest couple of bike shop guys I've ever come up on (besides Sarah at Chainwheel of course). I will probably go out of my way, and Golden is about 45 minutes out of my way, to support these guys. They were awesome.

So we made it home just in time to watch Texas dismantle the Buffs, but we had some good BBQ ribs, and some good cold beers. It was a GREAT day.

E