A "WEE" RIDE, THE TRUTH ABOUT DOGS AND A JOURNEY TO THE END OF THE ROAD

Before rumors fly rampant I thought I would give the real story.
A few days ago I went on a bike ride with professional triathlete Bree Wee.

(Bree Wee at St. Croix 70.3. Photo by Ramser1photo.com)

Wee and I rode about 50 miles, mostly uphill it seemed. We were climbing the last 5 miles or so before we reached the turn around to head back. We were moving at a pretty good pace when we simultaneously decided to have a sprint race uphill. The extremely large sounding dog in the driveway we had just pedaled past had no influence whatsoever on this decision. I promise.

I think Wee just wanted to run me into the ground, but to her surprise I flew by her and left her at the mercy of the beast quickly gaining on us. We were easily hitting 30 miles per hour (well I was, Wee was struggling to keep up), uphill on one of the toughest parts of the Ironman course.

After all was said and done I can say I out sprinted a pro triathlete up hill on the bike. Well, that's my version and I'm sticking to it.

Now the rumor going around about our "sprint" goes like this ....

Bree and I were biking along at a pretty good clip when we passed a driveway on our side of the road. We heard a large dog begin to bark. No biggie, we were moving too fast for a dog to catch us. But to my surprise that barking (a large pitbull by the sound of it) was getting closer.

I picked up the pace a little but the barking got even closer. My heart began to race, not from the pace but because I was sure I could feel the breath from that vicious, cyclist-eating pitbull on my ankle. The barking was so close now I new I was going to feel its teeth sink into my flesh at any moment.

(This is exactly what I visualized was chasing us.)

I was pounding the pedals so hard that I left Wee to fend for herself. See ya! I have this terrifying fear of barking dogs that overrides all sanity.

Closer and closer the barking got. Suddenly, a pickup truck pulls up beside me and slowly begins to pass by. The dog's barking is in my ear now. "OMG! It's a giant pitbull!" was my first thought. And then I see it. A border collie in the back of the pickup happily barking at the funny bikers.



Relieved and embarrassed, I sit up and slow down to let Bree catch up.

Both of us laughing, I weakly muttered "Boy, that was a good opportunity to sprint. I thought that dog was chasing us."

Bree: "So did I until I looked back and saw it was in the back of that pickup."

Me: "You know, dogs are excellent sprinters." Still trying to cover my tracks.

A little while later on our way back I was riding out on the road (that's what I like about riding to Hawi, not much traffic so you can ride on the road some) and Bree was riding on the shoulder when she looked over at me and said, "not taking any chances with this dog, huh?"
I said, "What do you mean?"

She points a little ahead of us at a little rat-looking dog running along the side of the road ignoring us.


JOURNEY TO THE END OF THE ROAD
Sunday, Rob Van Geen and I went for a training ride. We were supposed to ride the Honu course from Hapuna Beach to Hawi and back. But once we got up to Hawi we decided to ride to the end of the road. I've never been past Hawi before so I thought it would be a great ride.

What I got was the hardest training ride to date. I was totally surprised by how hilly and windy the road to the end was. The steep up and down hills, tight, single lane turns mader me feel like I was in the Tour de France or something. I nearly ran off the road on a couple of turns and almost had to walk on a couple of the up hills because they were so steep. I almost fell over. For the day we ended up riding about 62 miles in less than 4 hours and got a lot of hill work in and a lot of sight seeing.

Me at a park just past Kapaau.

Rob at the same park. This park had the steepest hill I ever tried to ride a bike up.

Rob cruising ahead on the way to the end of the road.

A coffee tree farm.

Finally the end is near.

Pololu Valley lookout. The end at last. My legs were rubber by the time we arrived and we still had 30 miles of riding to get back to where we started.

The valley. The vog (volcanic fog) 0was so bad we could barely see the cliffs. But it made it look like the chilly Oregon coast. Except for the palm trees.

Mule rides down into the valley is advertised on this sign. All these photos were taken with my very sweaty cell phone so I'm surprised they turnout at all.

Five miles on the way back we stopped in Hawi for a much-needed smoothhie break and this couple was outside the shop playing. I believe they called themselves the Elementals and they sounded pretty good. It was a long training day and probably my last hard day before Honu in a couple of weeks. A nice way to end the training and begin the taper.