July 18, 2004
Sunday's Entertainment
Bike Ride: Doug appears with shaved legs, I knew we were in for some serious pedaling now! Dean and Rob arrive warmed up and ready for the adventure. We take turns at the front but I stayed a little longer than most and slowly tightened the screws. Eventually Dean was getting dropped on the climbs, Doug was breathing hard but was having an inspired ride. Rob, riding with toe straps and running shoes, was hanging tough and even dishing out some pain on some of the climbs.
Dean was clearly suffering and tried to bail out of the ride as we climbed up Doc Hughes but I talked him out of it. Doug dominated the other two riders in the two county line sprints and put a huge gap on them up the long Blackjack climb. A little over a mile from the "finish line" Dean reads the traffic situation right and gets a 5-second gap over the bridge and around the corner toward Sunny Hill Rd. Following my wheel down the hill, the gap grows. The two chasers pedal hard but do not work together so the gap to Dean continues to grow. With a sustainable gap now in hand Dean pushes himself to his limit and gets up the final climb and rolls to an uncontested victory.
Black Cloud: I wanted a nice quiet dinner with my daughters, but no, our waiter, who was creeping us out to begin with, tripped on my chair, shattered a huge plate and tossed food all over the room we were in. OK, whatever, the three of us escaped the restaurant basically unscathed and decided to take in a movie. Yep, halfway through "Spiderman 2" the projector breaks down. Let's just forget about it. We got a refund and some free tickets for another time and called it a night.