My Escape from Urban Blight..I head up to the north country on a regular basis, All my family is in Traverse City area, deep in the pinkie region of the mitten we call Michigan, Leelanau County to be exact. Following my usual routine, I get on my bike and ride perfect roads with Evil midwestern climbs and am constantly rewarded with mind boggling vistas, This last holiday visit I'd start around 6am meeting up with fellow xXx'er Ed for two perfect rides, his family ironically lives right down the street from my sister. 5 minutes into peddling I'd see multiple deer running parallel to me, ripping thru the woods,a red fox scoot by and a unsuspecting waddling Raccoon. ...We rode north the first day deep into Leelanau County, thru Empire and parts of the Tour de Leelanau course, a brand new UCI Pro event..a tortuous 109 mile point to point road race. We sampled the 17% section of Fredrickson road which I've ridden many times and was happy to share with Ed..At the top of the climb that familiar sensation of nausea hits me thru the laughter of the utter absurdity of the thought of this hill at race pace with pro's....
Fast forward 24 hours...I plant myself at the top of this same hill to watch the race roll by, hoping to see a hint of pain from the faces of Domestic pro cyclists..After the parade of County Sheriffs and Race Marshals, I can see the Herd at the bottom of the Hill, there is a lead group of eight motoring up this thing like a squad of emotionless cyborgs, I fully belly laugh and am blown away by the tempo. 30 seconds back is the rest of the pro field laboring just a tiny bit, behind them are stragglers showing what I was looking for...aw yes...there it is, I feel ya brother...urp...5 minutes later a big group of amateurs slowly creep up this stinger and finally I don't feel so pathetic..ha. After the sweeper car rolled by We drive down into Empire to watch a sprint point after a technical decent, Perfect timing...As the Parade started by I could see the peloton strung out, flying towards us, We were standing right a 90 degree right hander 150 meters before the actual sprint point. The course was wet so the riders slowed into the corner and then Hammered up out of the saddle towards the sprint point...The wurr of Carbon fiber rims rolled by, my heart rate jumped as I watched these guys ripping single file. The average speed of the winning group for the 109 miles was just under 26 mph, which is insane thinking about the amount of climbing in this race..
From here we went to the beach and took an amazingly luxurious post ride/race watching/lunch nap in the sun...what a Kickass weekend...I hope I can entice my Chicago racing friends to road trip with me this summer to ride up there...The place is Magical
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