The Gift

Yesterday's training was a 60 mile bike ride in Napa Valley.  When we arrived, I pumped my tires and headed to the restroom.  On the way there, I heard a gigantic boom, which sounded like a shotgun, but I knew it was a tire busting and I thought, "Wow that sucks."  So I come out of the bathroom and see my bike lying on the ground.  It was MY bike that made that awful noise!  Either I had an old tube or I just pumped it with too much air and it burst.  By the time I ran over there, Nick was already in the process of changing it for me (thank you!).  

My surprise that I have now blown through 2 tubes in
 a row that were never even ridden on the road!

After the tire was fixed, we rode over to the group and started to roll.  But, silly me, I forgot my bottles in the car.  Once those were recovered, I realized I needed to make an adjustment in my new shoes that required scissors so I had to fix those.  Then I had some trouble with my new cleats, but we start riding.  Except that my cadence and my speed are not working.  So I stop (again) and get the cadence fixed.  And, about 8 miles later I finally get the odometer working.   


After that very slow start, I'm finally feeling good (and I'm by myself, which means I ride better).  I ride for about 20 miles with some healthy climbing.  The descent is a terrible road full of patched potholes making it extremely bumpy and painful.  I make it to a little general store (in the teeny tiny town of Pope Valley) for a potty break.  There are a bunch of cyclists there and they ask me where I'm going.  I tell them Ink Grade and they give me the lay of the land, which turned out to be good mental preparation for me.  It was a 4.1 mile climb and I figured with that kind of incline, I would only be averaging 4 mph, which means it would take me an hour to get up that hill!  Holy crap!  I find the road and make a note of my mileage and time.  I'm surprisingly doing ok.  I stop at the halfway mark to refuel and continue on.  Around the 3/4 mark, Captain Les rides by and informs me that he's the sweep.  What?!?!  Again, I'm last?!?!  There were three people behind me, but due to some bike issues, they had to stay back.  So as I'm continuing to struggle up the hill, Les tells me I'm doing great because the first three or four times he climbed this hill, he said he walked his bike (ok, so I feel a little better).  He then informs me the downhill is a "gift" and said he would climb this hill six times if only to have that downhill gift every time.  When I reach the top (I made it in 50! yay!), I'm really looking forward to this "gift" as he so called it.  And, it was exactly that.  A gift.  A smooth, clean, straight road, with only a few turns, and it was absolutely amazing!  

There's a SAG stop at mile 43.  From there we have the option to do a 7 mile loop and head back or just head back.  I'm interested in the loop, and know I'm capable of the extra miles, but I'm already at 4 hours and it's going to take another hour to complete the last 15 miles to the finish.  So we skip the loop and just head back.




We have a nice wide bike lane on the Silverado Trail so three of us are riding together.  As we are passing by winery after winery, I mention that we should at least hit up one since we are there.  Les, being the Assistant Winemaker at Korbel, offers to take us somewhere since he has industry privileges.

Vineyards on the Silverado Trail

After we get back and head to lunch, I get another unexpected gift -- a beautiful winery and free flight.  Les took us to Darioush for the architecture, which was Persian.  It had a little more of the the Vegas feel to it rather than quaint Napa, which means I definitely felt out of place in my sweaty bike gear!  But, I really didn't mind because I was still enjoying my gift.