First Road Race!

Once a month Laguna Seca Raceway has been opening up the track to the true fury of racing speed, grace, and beauty -- PEDAL BIKES! While I was out suffering away on my mountain bike, Bri and Shelly cruised over to take a looksie and check out the action.

After flopping down their $10 bucks, they were not only allowed to ride the track, but by-golly they were legitimate "racers" and would be vying for all of the fame, money and notoriety that go hand in hand with racing at Laguna Seca!

Turns out the racing goes for 7 laps, which is about 6 more laps than anyone really wants to do when you have to climb up to the top of the cork-screw over and over and over again! Bri thought she would make 3 laps, but after hooking up with Henrietta she found a "battle buddy" and the two of them fought tooth and nail (err, rode nicely together?) not even realizing the laps were winding down until they realized it was the last corner!

Apparently, Henrietta had been reading our blog and came up with a "translation" (see below a few posts) of her own that went like this:
Words: "Bri, I'm too tired, I'm just going to ride up the hill to the finish"

To which Bri took as fuel to begin sprinting towards the finish line not realizing her secret decoder ring had failed to break the message that ACTUALLY MEANS:

DECODE: "Bri, it's been fun riding with you, but now I am going to play weak for a split second to get in your draft and then attack you to the death before laying down a sprint that will produce wattage numbers that even PG&E would be proud of as I pummel you into the unsuspecting pavement!" Basically, this translates loosely into just short of "Die!"

To Bri's credit she did end up putting in 7 laps around a very challenging course and in the process beat most of the other girls in what turned out to be her first road race. Not only that, but she managed to stave off the attack of her "bestie" (aka: Shelly "The Mountain Bike Climb Killer" Monroe) and keep from getting lapped.

Apparently, Bri and Shelly were going to ride "together"...again translation: "as soon as the flag drops, it's each female dog for themselves!" Shelly was gone passing all of the guys and Bri was determined to put in her best effort to stay with her. In the end Shelly smoked most of the field and Bri ended up finishing on the same lap. All's well that ends well. And this just ended.

Podium Girls!