A charity ride through my daughters eyes

Team mate extraordinaire Helen Tarr and myself on the ferry early into the ride.

Dacree was refueling on the ferry to keep her energy up. This was the best part of the ride for me...we were moving and I was not dying.

Dacree's view for most of 60plus miles. Not a bad one really. LOL

She turned around and got a shot of Helen. Wow its surprising some of the shots she got.

We had to stop in between rest stops cause Dacree did not have to use it at any rest stop.

Not sure about everyone else, but I started riding and living for charity rides in between my triathlons. The challenge of passing people on hybrids and mountain bikes was oh so rewarding. Then one gets into road racing and the snobbery increases dramatically. As an elitist Cat 4 road racer, charity rides are not always on the menu since we are so much faster and need fast rides on the weekend with other fast racers. Fast being the key word there. hahaha Getting out of the ridiculous mind set of a racer and back to my roots was easy this weekend. I had my daughter this weekend and wanted to ride really bad. So I had some friends who were doing the Gator Ride (I know the common participant out there called it a race...sheesh) which is a MS150 warm up ride. No problem, closed roads, rest stops, lots of rides, protected lanes and perfect weather makes for the best chance to put in some long miles safely with my daughter in tow.

Now since I am so awesome and so strong on the bike and I have a matching kit that I race in...even shoe covers that are white...this would be no problem. I would still OWN that ride pulling my daughter. So I began trash talking to some friends starting Thursday. Just to make sure they knew how bad I was gonna make them hurt and that maybe they should just stay home that day.

So I find myself up at 5am getting it all together to go out on this little spin. Skipping ahead to the roll out. I start off and immediately I am wanting to advance my position and running the yellow line to do it. My friends Helen and Chris join me for the spin as well. THANK GOD THEY DID! We quickly get warmed up and hit the first little incline coming up to the big bridge of the day. I just knew that I would kill that hill on a charity ride...about 2/3s of the way up...the bridge killed me. Small ring and I just have to keep going. The top just never seemed to come. Then I figured after that its cake. I get to pass the people that passed me on the way up as it flattens out. Funny the looks you get when you are going over 20mph pulling nearly 80lbs behind you. I was drilling it just for the shock value of passing people like that...even though it was tough...I am a PRO CAT 4...this is cake! Yeah...that lasted about 20 miles if that. Then came the cross winds and the head winds. With my two teammates I was able to make due of the head winds while drafting off of Helen and Chris...but those crosswinds...OUCH!!! Here I am...on a custom titanium Guru Praemio with DuraAce, race wheels, ceramic bearings and so on and let a cross wind come and catch that rear trailer and it was TORTURE!!! I quickly felt bad for Helen and Chris and if it were not for me needing them. See the first part of the ride was great tale wind. The middle was a lot cross wind and we finished with head wind.Every bit of each pedal stroke required force and a lot of it. Finally we finished...I was in pain and could not believe I did not give up...cause I sure wanted too. Amazingly my daughter was great the whole time. She got a nap in and used up a Barbie camera on the ride. I am pretty sure I might have passed more than I got passed, though if it was the other way around I would not admit it. haha

I will have to do another one soon...but with out my daughter in tow...that will be shorter rides from here on out.