Well, at least the youthful domination is saving me money on beer.
For the second week in a row, the youths dominated #solokolo, this time on the short and flat dash to Stone Hound Brewing. After Max Meyer and Garrett Jenema topped the charts like Justin Bieber in his day, Drew Cummins and Kyan Olshove blasted the field to tie on week two.
The .4 mile long section of TART Trail was perhaps most famous previously for the strong scent of The Bayview and the penchant for its cook staff to stand in the middle of the TART while taking their smoke break. Now, it’s the final half-mile before one finds oneself at Stone Hound, a bike-friendly beer Mecca owned by Darth Faber, also known as Brent. They even tacked on Rad-Ish, one of the best restaurants in town (now with three locations!).
To their credit, Kyan and Drew were smart to keep the world waiting, putting in their efforts at the last moment on Saturday. Indeed, nearly the whole top five waited to the final hour, with Sean Kickbush, Ryan Reiter, Jason Lowetz, Jon Throop, and Jaden Drews all having their final times posted in the last few hours before the deadline.
On the women’s side, it appears Valerie Hyrman either didn’t mean to enter, or was quite confident that no one else would, posting the winning time at a loping 12.4 miles per hour.
As we hit Week Three, we’re opening up the first Two ‘Fer, and it’s going to be worth your while. We‘ll be doing some basic ‘rithmatic to combine your two efforts on two segments this week. Here’s the catch; you can do the segments as many times as you want all week, but your two times have to be from the same ride. So, you can do one Monday and the other Tuesday; if your best time on one was Monday, then you get the time on the other segment from that day, too.
You can do the segments in order, but we’ll start with the geographically convenient Craigy Col! Named after the road (which itself is named after the property owner and Craig’s Body Shop at the top of hill) it’s a deceptively long climb that juts north from Gray Road.
The second segment is a long and flat affair, at least compared to the efforts we’ve thrown at you so far. We’ve done it hundreds of times at TNR, but this week, you’re hitting Bluff Road to Blue Water Road solo and at FULL SPEED. It’s just a sneeze over four miles long with an elevation change of 29 feet, but there are just a few perceptible bumps along the way that will force tired legs up a cog or two. A south win should help, but once around Beckwith Bend, the open, rocky and window section near the start, the ample tree cover should keep it honest.
We’ll be giving up $10 gift cards to the Men’s and Women’s winners on this one to Brew, where you can get a delicious Earth’n’Eggs breakfast sandwich all day! Breakfast is a state of mind, time a time on the clock.
A few of you pointed out that we haven’t been hitting you up for money the past two weeks; that’s partly because we felt bad for hitting up the TC Zwift people for money all winter and raising, like, millions of dollars for Child and Family Services and Cherryland Humane Society and Great Lakes Humane Society. But if you’re feeling generous and would like to have something worthy to look forward to this summer, consider signing up for the Less Cancer Bike Ride America. This year, on June 5, Less Cancer is encouraging cyclists around the country to pedal the path to prevention wherever they are. TC has hosted the ride previously, and now there will be hubs all over the country! We’re still encouraging people to ride solo or in small groups, but if you can donate and get involved, head to lesscancerbikerideamerica.org and join the kolo t.c. Team. You can also simply donate to the team’s fundraising efforts, too.