Kennesaw Tri Ride

by Mitch Askew
July 2003

The Saturday Kennesaw ride had a pretty decent turn out. There were about 30 of us. Roy starting recruiting peeps for the century option. I told him I was in. The good news about the century option is you get out of climbing the Plateau of Death. The bad news is you gotta do an extra 35 miles and your riding with Roy and Phil from RBM. I am still trying to figure out which option is the most painful, since they both really hurt. At the turn off for the century it was Roy, Phil, and Jason from RBM, Gill from Genesis, Mitch from Boneshakers, and Bill a recreational rider. The RBM's and myself were doing long 26-29 mph pulls. Gill and Bill were the first to start to suffer. At about 50 miles we made Gill and Bill just sit in, while the rest of us did the pulling. There is a little town that you go thru where on the Kennesaw Century they have a rest stop. That is where Roy, Phil, Chris, and I think one other RBM left myself and 4 others who were all riding for Eagle at the time. We stopped to get some water for about 2 minutes and then rode hard as hell the rest of the day and never once saw them again. I jealously wrote a snyde remark about them boys in an email and somehow Roy read it and of course remembers it. So everytime we go thru there he gives me hell about it. At one point Bill dropped off the back and I pulled him back up to the group with a little help from Roy. The day was heating up fast, and the rest stop could not have come sooner. Everything was o.k. until we hit HWY 41. As soon as we got out on the hwy, I started to overheat. My quads started to cramp and my head 
started to swell in my helmet. Gill dropped off, then Bill, then Jason eased up and turned off to go home since he rode to the ride. Phil attacked on the last major climb of 41 and left. Roy waited for me as I was trailing off as well. I caught Roy at the top and Roy pulled us all the way to Phil and beyond. Now it was Roy, Phil, and myself and we were definitely in race mode. We got about 1 mile from the turn off of 41 and I was way over in the red. I put my head down and stopped pedaling. It was all over for me. Bill caught up to me shortly thereafter and pulled me all the way back to the parking lot. He even waited a couple of times. I cracked hard. I was so overheated and cramped up I could only pedal and not move anything else. 
Bill and I got to our cars in 4 hrs and 51 minutes total ride time for 99.6 miles. The first 65 miles we were averaging about 22.8. I told Roy I will  redeem myself one of these days for this day and the Kennesaw Century, but it might take me 10 years.