Yesterday was a day off from racing, but not from riding. After a quick breakfast at the hotel (wherein I cringed and chewed through two patties of mystery meat in the name of protein loading), I set out for a 2-hour endurance ride out and back on a rural highway in Georgia. It was more noteworthy than anticipated:
1. At one point, a truck barreled by and what sounded like a gunshot echoed tremendously. I froze for a moment and then swerved sharply into the grass alongside the road and waited to die. Nothing happened, except I may have peed a little.
2. A few miles later, a pit bull came racing out of somebody’s yard and chased me down the highway. It was terrifying, but I had the good sense to at least start sprinting while also shrieking and starting to cry.
3. I did stop to get some ass:
4. I left the hotel to ride at 8:56 for a 2-hour ride. I’m managing a proposal at work remotely while travelling this week and have to run a daily status call with my team at 11am. Realizing I was going to be cutting it too close to make it back to the hotel for the call, I decided to pull onto a quiet side street to dial in to the teleconference. At 10:54, I turned off the highway, rode for a few minutes to a peaceful spot, pulled over and got ready to dial. The phone said “NO SERVICE” and panic ensued. I jumped on the bike, raced back to the main road, and stopped as soon as I had one bar to dial into the call. Nothing feels more professional than standing in somebody’s side yard next to their birdbath, sweating onto the phone and trying to discuss labor rates and technical narratives.
5. Last year while driving around during Speedweek, Monika and I kept seeing what looked like dead armadillos on the side of the road. It was perplexing; don’t armadillos only live in the southwestern states? Why were they in Georgia? I started seeing them again this year and was filled with wonderment anew, but it’s hard to make a positive identification when passing the corpse at 80MPH on the highway. FRET NOT! I saw one on the ride, and now, so can you! This is an armadillo, right?! Sorry he’s kind of flat and leaky and gross.
A quick Google search tells me that, yes, armadillos can appear in Georgia and also that, “The North American nine-banded armadillo tends to jump straight in the air when surprised, and consequently often collides with the undercarriage or fenders of passing vehicles.” Forget racing; my new goal for Speedweek is to surprise an armadillo.
Yeah, I lived in Atlanta for 7 years and the little critters have migrated east and north. They not bright animals.
WOW!! You experience more excitement on a 2-hour training ride than I do in an entire week!! Glad you’re having fun…well, except for the gunshot thing and that pit bull! At least #3 was fun.
Good luck with the rest of your time down there and be safe!! 🙂