The pre game show

Hello from warm and alternately sunny and monsoonlike western NC!

I arrived here on Saturday. Here is a lesson in how not to acclimate.

1. Sit on a plane for 7hrs
2. Sleep 12hrs
3. Decide to go out for a ride at the crack of noon in weather 30+ degrees warmer with humidity 80% higher than the weather youre used to. Oh, and some alarmingly bright orange thing beating down on you from the sky.
4. Go ride hills. Immediately, with no warm up. And make sure its some of the most ass kicking hills near the house too.
5. RIde with people who can kick your ass on a good day and lament your pathetic state.

Easily the worst Ive felt on the bike in a long long time.  The last time I rode with my pal Brent was over a year ago.  I was chunky and seriously slow.  He had to push me up the climb we were doing together.  I was so eager to show him how bad ass I have become riding hills all year in Portland!

Guess who had to get pushed up the hill?

Guess who had molasses legs?

Yep.  At least I know what not to do when I arrive in Italy!

I apologize for the lack of pictures in this entry.  I upload them to Facebook which doesnt talk to Blogger because Google doesnt own it (yet).  Google+ is like a desert with some tumbleweeds rolling by so i never post there, but it looks like Ill have to start if I want to easily share photos here.  We will see how it goes.  For now

You can look at my album on Facebook

We headed out to the Nantahala Outdoor Center to spend some chill days in the forest before heading up to VA to start the ride.  Formerly an Olympic training site for water sports its somewhat of a summer camp for grown ups.  We stayed in a neat little cabin above the river.  We heard bull frogs at night! And saw some dirty AT hikers! Good times

Monday, eager to redeem myself, we headed out again for a ride from the NOC.  Legs were feeling a lot better (turns out warming up helps) and Brent took my GoPro. For the first time someone would be getting video of ME on the bike!  This was exciting

This was also exciting, but in a very bad way

Brent was a bike courier. And a semi pro downhill mountain bike racer.  Clearly, the one with the bike handling skills, complete lack of fear and defiance to flip off someone coming at us at about 65mph,. 6" from his elbow.

So after nearly dying we had a really beautiful ride through the gorge and up a nice steep little hill, after riding a long a river with a lot of waterfalls.  That video is coming later, still working to cut it together.

Today while running around doing some last minute errands before our drive to Waynesboro VA tomorrow we stopped into Motion Makers.  They had this sweet Mavic wheel set on sale.  A sweet wheel set that was over a pound lighter than the one I own.  Well, I was talking about getting a lighter set for Italy anyway, so why not try them out on the BRP.  Lucy is very excited to show off her NEW ruby slippers (See FB photo album above).  Once again she has matchy matchy red hubs.  On top of a fantastic price they also gave me an awesome padded wheel bag! Thanks guys!

^_^

So how am I feeling right now?  Very nervous.  Worried I wont be able to keep up.  Wondering how the hell my body will react to what we are doing.  Hoping we wont get caught in a spring monsoon.  We were advised by someone who did this ride a few years ago to get Valerian root to help with sleep.  Why would you need help sleeping when your banging out about 10,000ft of climbing  / day?  I guess your body gets too exhausted to sleep.

0_o

Maybe Ill try some Valerian root tonight.

I cant make any promises but Ill try to blog a little about it at the end of each epic day, or at least tweet a bit and/or update Facebook.  I will say that after our encounter in the gorge Im very glad the max speed limit on the BRP is 45mph.

To Waynesboro and beyond!  (beyond being south to Cherokee NC, the end of the BRP)