Busy 2 Weeks

Sorry I haven't blogged the past few weeks. The week before last I took my kids to Disneyland for a few days and this past week I was sick although I did manage to damage the Coy Mistress.

Last week the derailleur jammed or went into the spokes or something and shattered but it took off a good chunk of clearcoat on the chainstay when it did. The carbon underneath does not look scratched but dang its an ugly chunk. The local cannondale dealer is getting me some touch up paint. As for the derailleur, when I went to put the new one on (after many heated words with the not so "quick" link on the chain) I discovered the derailleur hanger was loose and when I tightened it one of the screws sheered off (it must have been weakened by everything). So, other than taking the kids on the ride for life ride to celebrate bike month on Saturday my training was running around trying to get my bike fixed which I ended up leaving with Kevin over at Iron Gear Sports so he could get things dialed in when the amazingly hard to find part showed up. He's the one who originally set this bike up and he's got a lot of experience. He even said he'd give it a "bath" (how embarrassing, I should have cleaned it before bringing it in).

I'm bummed as I really needed a good 5 hour bout of hill climbing to prep for the Mines to Pines 300k next week . It's a pretty climbing intensive 300k with over 10000 feet of climbing. I'm going to try and get 4 or 5 hours in before getting in to work at 9 tomorrow. We'll see if I can get out of bed early enough. With the past few weeks lazy training schedule I need something. I would have liked the Tour de Phoenix to be longer but I think the higher intensity made up for the shorter length, I was drained for several days after that ride.

Anyway, I believe I am still stronger than last year at this time so I think I can finish. Will I beat the time of 16 hours and 21 minutes I got last year? We'll see. It's a beautiful yet challenging ride and anything can happen and probably will. At least if it gets too hot I can go jump in the lake :) .