Had a great day helping out at the Niverville checkpoint for Actif Epica.  Met nice folks from other clubs like Olympia and Alter Ego.  It was a very fast race.  These were deadly serious athletes.  For the leaders, the Niverville break was between 1 and 3 minutes.  If I hadn’t come 4 hours early to the checkpoint, I’d have missed most of the cyclists.  Even the runners were through the 61km checkpoint by 5 pm.  Jim Nadler tore through at just after 11am and Pete was shortly behind him (in spite of being led off course for 30 minutes right out of St. Malo).  Rob came through a bit later but was in good spirits and looking strong.  Unfortunately, when I turned on my camera, I discovered it was missing the memory card.  So, had to take pictures with my SuckBerry for the rest of the day.  Below are elapsed times that we recorded at the checkpoint (approx 1/2 way through the race).

Best of luck to all the MIT Actif Epica racers tomorrow!  I believe we have Jim, Rob L., and Pete in the race, as well as MIT associate Andrea (aka Cyclechick).  If you guys don’t rip it up too quickly, I might see you at the Niverville checkpoint (I’m the “official” from 3PM till the 7:30PM cut-off time).  Your awesomeness is awesome.  Protect your fat bikes at the checkpoint, if I’m there, they could get “lost”.

I’m thinking I’ll bring my roller along for the hypothermia testing.  You know, ride the roller handsfree while counting down from 100 in prime numbers…that sort of thing.  Won’t this be fun?

Ever wonder what would happen if today’s Republican Party Primary were a pro-tour cycling club building their peloton?  Whatever happened to the vision that spawned the anti-slavery party?  Well, whatever you may have to say about them, just be certain that they are “severely more conservative” than you or anyone else.  And that just makes us all feel so damn good.

If there were a Republican pro-tour, the delegates motto might be “I can pull longer than you”.  Which we all know is the way to win a race, right?