2010 Death By Hills, in memoriam

Greetings to you, you sadistic, sadistic people. Today I think we all reached new heights, both in wrist-snappage, cake consumption, and hill gradients. I know that I felt a lot like Billy from "Predator," who delivered one of the most amazing lines: "We gon' die out here, Major." He then proceeded to cut the shit out of his chest and face like a true badass:


The perfect weather we had today seemed to have a positive effect on this ride - I didn't even get a headcount, but I'm sure that there were between 50 and 60 people on that ride at some point. I can't fucking believe that many people showed up to a road ride put on by Team Seagal. It's kind of like going to a cow pie flinging contest put on by gold-medal-winning curling squad.

The reaction from everyone to the turn up Bartizan was worth the time spent on this ride alone, and the... "odor" in the Allenton Rd. gas station was enough to have me feeling euphoric while reminiscing about times past. Seeing Sherrid pull a manual like this down Alt road at like 35mph on his bmx bike was pretty sweet ("Who is he, just some local kid?"):


We went up all the same hills as last year (plus or minus a few more), and more people finished! The view from the top of Cremin's Green and the D9 Bulldozer that rusts away up there is in fact quite satisfying. Climbing that hill was enough to make me forget how sad I was after seeing that sappy stray-pet commercial with Sarah Mclaughlin singing that crappy song, and how much of a douche Apolo Ohno looks with that Turbo-Soulpatch.

Also quite satisfying is knowing that Nico completed the entire ride on a fancy hybrid. Not many people have singlespeed hybrids, by the way. Pete, once again, rode to the ride and then rode home, thus showing us up once more. One guy, probably twice my age, did 110 miles the day before. I learned that there is no such place as "Lone Elk Coffee Company." We found out that small pieces of cake are an amazing thing to put down your throat-hole after 43 miles. Also, as it turns out, the sound of weakness leaving the body is eerily similar to the sound of spokes pinging and popping under the stress of being torqued up a 25% grade at 4mph.

Damn, what a good day. Let's do this again soon.

-Casey F. Ryback, Regular Guy.

PS. Good day. Nico here. Attached is the Garmin link as recorded from my hybrid. It is close to the full course except I did not go up Cremin's Green or Babler Forest Dr. because the VGS-12 malfunctioned when I thought about them and almost dropped a Fugi on my Kona. Coach is a effin' ass-hole. PEACE!