Sun, snow, wind, rain, and a hill

Today Pat and I decided, at the last minute I might add, to hook up and go for a ride. We invited Cris, but he said today was not his day. So, we ventured on.

Pat showed up and I suggested we ride up Mt. Spokane. It seemed like a good idea since it was a pretty nice day so far. A tad windy, but overall decent. We headed out and eventually started the gradual climb. We were chatting all the way up until we hit Kirk's Lodge which is where the "real" climbing begins. Sad part is, is that I was already in my smallest gear. Not good. We pressed on and started the steeper grades. I moved on and Pat to a more comfortable pace. One that would actually see him riding home afterward.

Though you cannot understand what I am saying because of uploading problems, I am basically saying that this is my Spring Break. Kind of like Daytona Beach. We have the "white sands" too...well, more snow I guess.

As I continued to climb...in the saddle, out of the saddle, weaving back and forth... the weather was changing all the way up. Sunny, snowing, windy...everything. As I was getting closer to the lodge, snow began to appear on the sand covered road. Oh well, keep going. When you are going slow up hill, the snow and dirt/gravel never seem to bother me. But when I start heading down it always does. I got to the top, was passed by a snowplow, and waited for Pat. While waiting, I created a video message to Cris. This is what I had to say:

Though you cannot understand what I am saying, you get the idea.

We then made the very cold descent and headed out to the prairie where we saw fierce winds that found us in survival mode. Keep pedalin,' keep pedalin.'

We both made it back home safely. But I noticed that once we returned, the sun came out, and the wind died down. Thank you Mother Nature for giving us what we needed.

What is this?

Where did this all begin? How did this happen? Why do I all of a sudden have an urge, desire, or fascination to race my road bike...before I even have it? I think that it would be prudent to try and define where all this came to be. Because where we are today with Arrivee was a result of The Perfect Storm. I would not bet on something like this. So often the greatest gifts in life, are often the ones we don't expect.

I would love to take us all back about 25 years, but there are simply way too many chapters in that story. So, let's start with at least 2010...and only a couple months ago. I will let each one of the characters develop as this blog blossoms. Jessi (wife) and I went down to Zola to see Cris Lucas play with an ensemble of other musicians. It was amazing! During an intermission, Cris told me he ordered a cross bike (this was after he asked me about these bikes about a week ago via facebook). That was cool...new wheels. I told him that I was thinking about doing some road races early this season. His eyebrow perked, and was interested. I believe he made some kind of casual commitment to "possibly" doing some races. But he bought a cross bike, not a road bike. I then fired out a text to Pat who, in a few texts, was in as well. Mark, well, he's always in, but like me, did not have a road bike. I knew I had one coming, but did not have it yet. With 4 people really wondering how serious everyone was, we decided to have a casual meeting at the Elk on a Sunday evening. From that meeting, Arrivee was reincarnated. From that point, we have all had a hand in something. Since some people had not really been on a bike in 15 years (uh, Cris?), we held off a "group ride" for a couple weeks. I still recall an email I recieved from Cris saying that he rode for an hour and it said he went 15 miles. He felt fairly certain that his bike computer was wrong and needed to be recalibrated.

We all met up for a nice easy ride for about 1.5 hours out the Centennial Trail for the most part. Jessi tagged along. Jessi can ride with just about any group and be okay. She doesn't bring tissues though, so don't start crying when she rides away from you. Guys normally have some of their best rides when she is there. No guys likes to get chicked. But it happens. Cris was donning his apparel from the 80s and on his new cross bike. Pat was on his steel road bike, I was on a TT bike, a was Mark and Jessi. We cruised along and had a nice ride. Things got a little heated on the way back as we were trying to race a train. But at the end of the day, we all still wanted to ride out bikes, and that's all it was about.

Cris continues/ed to work on sponsors for the team and the clothing design. It's all coming together and looking nice at the moment.

Eric, Steve, Pat, Cris, Roger, and Martin. Taking picture, Jessi. Mark took a wrong turn and Russ was long gone.

We went on our 2nd ride just last Saturday (March 27th) with a group of 8.5. The .5 was Russ, who only lasted about 30 minutes because of a plane he had to catch. So along with Arrivee (Cris, Pat, Mark, and myself) was also Jessi (lone girl), Martin, Steve, and Eric. When we all met, and Eric saw Cris, he asked Cris how long ago did they use shifters on the downtube? We all had to laugh because we have turned in those guys who seem to start every story with, "Remember when..."

That was the start of Arrivee 2010. Along with the excitement came the desire to race. That is what we all did, and why we rode our bikes...we raced. So once we all had some training under our belts, we started a race schedule. Kind of funny really. But first on the list was the race the day after our 3.5 hour ride called "Muddy Heutter." Though it was not the smartest to ride over 3 hours prior to our first race in a decade, we did not want to squander a saturday ride. That roughly bring us up to our first race, as a team.