On The Way to Hell
The voting has commenced and I was able to get enough votes to make my way into Santa Cruz Bicycle’s fifth annual Hellride. I will be competing against Mark Weir and three others (Doug, Matthew and Kurt) in a race that will take 12 hours to finish and include 12,000 feet or more of vertical elevation gain in 90 degree heat. Check out the site to see my competition: http://www.santacruzbicycles.com/hellridefive/
The race takes place in a town called Downieville, California. The elevation will be my first enemy, as I currently live at 50 feet above sea level, and the peaks are around 7,000 feet. The second will be the climbs which I have been told can be up to two hours long. Since I got Lyme, I’ve been watching the tour de France way more than I’ve been riding my bike. So this will truly be a test of will.
I got the local paper to do a story on the event which you can see here:
And here is what I am racing for:
A brand new 2009 Santa Cruz Nomad.
I’d like to put out a huge thanks to everyone that voted for me and sent my request out to friends, family and coworkers. A big thanks to everyone in my family, my coworkers at HBO, and former coworkers at ALM. All of the mountain bike clubs in New York, New Jersey and Connecticut, and all of the people trolling the forums and sending a vote my way. In the end I got more votes than all of the others in the competition. Thanks again.
So now it is time to start documenting this whole thing via video. I will be back on August 4th and of course I’ll let you know how it all shook out.
Tuesday, July 29, 2008