MueckeRacing

sorry for the delays with any more photos, and you’ll have to be patient with my responses to your comments and e-mails, but I am in Boston right now and unable to access my e-mail.

I am having a great visit/recuperation time with my sister and her two boys and husband – Tony Massorotti.  The boys keep us busy but I have managed to start in with some riding again – I took a nice 35 mile tour of the area yesterday morning, and will head west for a while today to see what other sights there are around here.  I almost managed a century ride a few days ago down in Annapolis – but the fatigue level is pretty high, so I am content just to be out enjoying the feel of riding again.

So here’s a couple of things that stick out vividly in head about Race Across America, in no particular order.  Mostly because time and place cease to have any meaning – I think the brain shuts off that function to help conserve energy.

Plunging down over the top of the glass elevator in CA.  This is a 12 mile plummet from a mile up to a few hundred below.  I couldn’t help but be confused by the support vans and officials vehicles that insisted on passing me just before the crest of the summit.  But it was well worth the fun about halfway down.  I passed up three other riders, one of their support vehicles, then had to momentarily touch the brakes as I decided what to do about the official who was ambling down the hill.  We hit a spot with a slight decrease in the grade and he slowed up just enough for me to pedal my way past him.  The grade and curves increased again at this point, and now I could see my own support vehicle.  I flopped down on the aerobars and slid up next to them – basically eye to eye with my driver.  The look on his face was priceless, as they had no idea is was passing them.

After climbing over Mingus Mtn. the route drops down through a little town called Jerome.  The sights and sounds of this little town were unique.  It is an artsy little town with lots of little store fronts and restaraunts, but the whole town is built on the side of the mountain, with hundreds of vertical feet seperating the top of the town from the bottom.  I later learned that Dad’s Garmin unit had tried to commit suicide and take half my crew with it by requesting a right turn where there was no road!

Late one night heading into Indianna.  The chip-sealed, frost heaved, pot-holed road had changed to a new asphalt road, and I was finally comfortable again after hours of misery.  I had been keeping up with a women’s team, but was going to have to stop and pee pretty quick.  This year the rules were changed to require teams to do stationary exchanges at night.  Thus, a solo rider can do well against a team – the solo rider doesn’t have to stop every ten or twenty minutes to change riders.  Anyways, after my pee break I decided to give chase.  This was pretty much a fruitless effort, as I was heading for a sleep break at the next time station, but I could see the rider in the wash of her support van’s lights, and I was feeling pretty good.  I slowly added a few watts at a time until I judged I was gaining on her.  After about ten minutes we were definetely ready to attempt a pass.  I was pretty well all-out at this point, but had decided a few miles back that after all the hard work the crew had done for me over the last few days, one little pass in the middle of the night might be fun for them.  I grabbed one more gear, laid into the power and rolled past the support van in front of me.  I’m pretty sure the rider wasn’t amused by my stunt – she never even said “hello” or “where’re ya from, stranger”.  She re-passed me in pretty short order, which was fine – the hotel wasn’t to0 far away and I was looking forward to a little break anyways.

Kansas is a great memory in general.  I had feared Kansas above all else on RAAM, I was afraid the headwinds would sap my spirit and stop me in my tracks.  The strong north winds on the first day had just enough west in them to keep me rolling, but the second day was a true gift: tailwinds and moderate temperatures.  I suppose I should have tried to temper my enthusiasm, but as Kansas rolled under my wheels I found myself feeling better and better.  This would soon be changed by the rolling hills of Missouri, but I really felt like superman at the time.

One more for today, and that is a little road called St. Mary’s Road.  After paralleling the interstate for quite a while we were treated to a quick descent into a little German town, then climbed back out onto the farmlands.  The road zigged and zagged for many, many miles – and it suddenly dawned on me that the road was following section lines.  Probably every turn was where a drive or side road would lead to a homestead, but what struck me was that the sections were small:  maybe I am making this up in my head, but it seemed to me that the road was so old that it was laid out on section lines that a horse could handle.  And then from around the corner appeared the church of St. Mary’s, then the road continued and we dropped down into another little German town.  It struck me then how that particular road must have held the two towns together, with the church at the center of it.  How odd to have had to excess brain function to ponder something as extraneous as the origin of a road.