Runaway Roubaix

The Harris Roubaix, a group ride celebrating a few of the Valley's beautiful dirt roads, was this past Sunday. The weather and road conditions were perfect, and my boyfriend and I decided to do a pre-Roubaix ride that morning and drop in later for some gravel laps and socializing. We rode through Hopkins Gap, toured Long Run Road, visited a potential fishing hole, coasted through Fulks Run, then looped back to the Roubaix course via Turleytown Road. Oh, did I mention we were on a tandem bicycle? The power of two flew us through our morning tour, and we got to the farm hosting the Harris Roubaix event just in time to leave with a few friends for a "party lap". Oblivious to the rage of Yanni Yensen on the front of our bike, I had no idea that I was about to get dragged into a gut-busting race against the three leaders who caught up to lap us halfway through. My father, clad in a Ralph Lauren sweatsuit and riding a motorbike, came around a corner with the three leaders not far behind. Erik and I saw them and tried to get to the top of the next descent quickly to try and hold them off, as the tandem is a mountain bike with 300 pounds of fearless momentum. Once we got to the bottom of the hill, we had put a slight gap on the leaders, and held them off for a while until the next climb. A few helpful pushes from Dad on the motorcycle and Erik's race-mode legs driving our machine kept us with the top three for the next few miles. Between the serious trash talk to the leaders and vigorous pedal strokes, I was out of breath and in the pain cave (this is possible on a tandem... who knew?) We quit our teasing before the last uphill of the course, but finished the lap strong. I never thought I would feel more tired the next day after a tandem ride than I did after Dragon's Tale last week... Nevertheless, an awesome day with my significant other and an amazing time riding in the sunshine with some fun people makes the soreness worthwhile. To all those asking when Erik and I will be riding the Shenandoah Mountain 100 in the tandem category... Stay tuned.