Grasshopper-Kings Ridge

Pre-race with Lemurian Class Winner A. Brooks...

Grasshopper#4 was a blast! Good ol' Levi Leipheimer showed up again as did a BMC pro Scott Needham...of course Levi won.

The week proceeding was filled with all sorts of nerves..how much climbing would we be doing? Could I do this? All further  frenzied by A. Brooks incendiary emails and warnings to bring our "A" game. "A" game? C'mon now, I'm like a Category 8 rider. I'm heavy. I can't climb well. "A" game! Anyway, I mistakenly looked up the course profile before the event and freaked a bit more, but then settled in to whatever mode. If it gets too hard, I can always walk. I bought Bicycle Works out of processed food stuffs, tubes, CO2's and new brake pads. Ate at Azzurro the night before and even had breakfast the day of. I was ready as I was ever gonna be.

Crazy ride, really cool with tons of climbing and virtually no cars. Was involved in my first crash. Coming back down the road (missed turn) with two friends, I was leading and started to slow to ask directions from riders heading other direction, just in time to hear my friend Chris (behind me and much bigger than me) yell, "Ken!" He hit me from behind/back side (I stayed upright somehow) and went flying off the road onto his back and then bushes. Then my friend Michael hit Chris' rear wheel and flipped into dirt on side of road. While Chris was in the air his rear tire exploded, scared the hell out of everyone. Luckily no one was really hurt although Chris' jersey was shredded on the back and his helmet was destroyed. Michael's chi-chi R-Sys wheel snapped a spoke too. Chris is super human, he brushed it off, fixed his flat and was asking who else was going to join him back "on route" for the 7 mile dirt descent! I stayed with Michael and his broken Mavic-we had to cock it a bit in the drop out so it wouldn't rub on the fork. Bear in mind we were about 40 miles into an 80 mile ride!

Michael nursed the Mavic through some seriously screaming downhills (18% signed grade on road) onto Jenner. I convinced him that we only had 10 or so miles to go and he went along. Funny thing though the remaining 10 miles were mostly a dirt road climb! He flatted 2X with his Michelin Prorace 3's (I had swapped to heavier Conti's in anticipation of dirt).

Anyway, we finished the ride which was really cool and had a blast in doing it. Didn't end up being the total crusher I feared, we skipped two sections (dirt descent and a serious steep climb), but still got 70 miles with 7,500' or so feet of climbing. And spent Sunday pretty slow with Jake-mo as I was much more sore than I imagined!

And yes, we didn't "officially" do the entire ride...I did notify them of fact at finish...guess I was assuming that given the circumstances of the day (crash and all), my general ranking (somewhere near the bottom of the event) and the fact we at least made it back without hitching a ride-all qualified my fat ass as at least nearly last and not DNF.

Here's a comparison of my ride and my friend Peter's ride (way to go Peter you and Andrew were the only ones of our group to finish the entire ride correctly)...

My MotionBased suck-etude

Peter's MotionBased

Of course, I am fully willing to take my punishment—how about I race the final G-Hopper and then Tamarancho? Maybe even do Tamarancho on my SS...

Pics? Yep, lots of them, go to my Flickr page.

Thanks again everyone who organized the Grasshopper, they are truly outstanding events with great courses, and really fun folks.