Monthly Archives: June 2011

Kevin does Kings under 30 minutes, Big group, NO RAIN!!!

Tues/Thurs 7:45am ride, , , ,

I’m ready to declare the end of rain. From now through November, it’s clear skies and warmer temps. Windbreakers are to be left at home, the rain bike can be safely stashed under the house, and you no longer have a good excuse for continuing to carry around your “hibernation fuel” around your belly. Good times are ahead!


And a very good time it was this morning, perhaps one of the last times that I have to head up the hill a bit ahead of the group when riding with Kevin (my son Kevin, not the pilot). Kevin’s wanted to break the 30 minute barrier up Kings Mtn for some time; Tuesday he missed it by 15 seconds, and today, for the first part of the climb, I thought he’d be lucky to get 32. We hit the traditional half-way timing point at just over 16 minutes, not a good sign. In fact, the three timing points I use to gauge my progress on the first half of the climb were all looking pretty bleak, with each successive one being further off the mark than the one before. My theory is that Kevin had eaten way too much way too soon before the ride (a very large bowl of cereal) and was seriously bogged down.

But then something clicked. Kevin claims he started doing his new chant-

Never stopping,
Never sleeping,
Never eating,
Always riding.

It worked. On that nasty steep section in the middle, before the open part, Kevin kicked it up a notch. Or two. We hit the “open” timing point (road marker that says 1.41 on it, the distance in miles to the top) at 20:30, still below the 20 minutes “required” for a 30 minute time at that point, but still accelerating. Normally, if you’re going full-tilt, it’s 4 minutes from the last hairpin (at the archery range road) to the top, and you really do have to be pushing to pull that off. We were, if I recall correctly, just outside of that. But by the time we got to the penultimate timing point we had pulled even with a fast pace, at 28 minutes. Just two minutes left, and as long as he didn’t die, he had a chance. Let me tell you I had a very tough time staying on his wheel on that final stretch, and he finished in 29:42. 18 seconds to spare.

But the ride wasn’t all about Kevin. This was our largest group to date; not even sure how many, probably a dozen or so, and a good opportunity to edit an all-around video of the entire ride, which you can see below. You’ll notice it has the same soundtrack as the video of Kevin’s climb, and actually starts out showing Kevin finishing Kings (and then the rest of the group coming up behind; we had a 5 minute head start on them).

Sorry about the blotchy screen in the lower-right corner for the last couple of minutes; a bit of crud kicked up from a rider in front and stuck to the lens. Obviously, the answer is to ride in front of everybody, but that fails on two counts. First, I’d have to be faster than everyone else, and second, a video without bikes in it is hardly worth calling a video, is it?

Breakfast with the Tuesday-morning ride

Tues/Thurs 7:45am ride
Eric, Karl, Kevin, Kevin & George (who turned 56 today!) at Alice's Restaurant. Low calorie fare, of course! Agent Dale Cooper in Twin Peaks would have added "Damn fine coffee too!"

Finally, a long-range (and short-range!) forecast with no rain!!! A bit of mist up on Skyline, but that’s not so bad. This morning Kevin (my son, not the pilot) and I headed up a few minutes early, along with Millo. This was Kevin’s first real post-high-school ride so we made it a mini-event with breakfast at Alice’s Restaurant, but we’ll get to that a bit later. First things first, it was time to get that 30-minute-King’s Mountain-monkey off Kevin’s back. Or so we thought. I hit my timer at the right place, but Kevin forgot to hit his. No problem, right? Except that my Garmin ‘705 computer has been having a habit of dying at random intervals lately, and on the way up the hill, it died after about 8 minutes or so! This meant that the only way we’d be able to time the ride would be after the fact, by looking at either his Garmin’s output (and figure out where the starting & stopping points were) or the video I was shooting.

Kevin started out pretty slowly up the hill, slow enough that I had my doubts we’d come anything close to 30 minutes. But, as before, he started speeding up as soon as it got steeper, and by the half-way point, I’m thinking maybe he’s got a chance. We jettisoned Millo at the park entrance (not because he couldn’t keep up, no issue there, but he had to get back early) and continued on, wondering if we were going to get caught, wondering how we were doing. Flying blind, as it were. We get to the top, not knowing how it went, but a bit hopeful because nobody caught us on the way up and we actually had to wait several minutes for the rest to show up (the rest being Marcus, Darryl, Kevin, Karl, Eric & George). Later we were to find out he’d finished at 30:15, respectable, but not yet there.

From there it was the usual quick run to Sky Londa, with Kevin fitting right into the group on the descent, riding in perfect formation while I hung back a bit because A) I was trying to film it and B) I don’t feel as comfortable as Kevin does riding so closely to others at high speeds. Guess Kevin’s training at the track has paid off. We then stopped off at Alice’s and ordered breakfast, letting them know we’d be back in about 20 minutes. The waitress had some concern that our food might be ready before we would be back, but it seemed to work out perfectly, as we arrived back to a table set with 5 of the 6 plates with the final one arriving almost instantly. This is the life! I had the “Agusta” which, while more than I should have eaten, ended up being my only food between 9am and 9pm (two eggs, two sausages & two pancakes, plus a cup of really good coffee).

I’m thinking Kevin won’t need a head start by the middle of summer, maybe even sooner. And I’m thinking we should do the breakfast ride thing more often than once every three years or so!