You gotta hand it to the little meanies, they make the transfer from horses to cyclists with ease, and in daring style.
Horse flies are pros at the art of drafting, and not just behind horses either. Hikers are easy targets. Bikers and runners are a little harder to catch, but catch us they do. They fly behind in your draft, and the sting comes as a surprise from behind, a little like Mark Cavandish in a stage race.
The name of the game at Santos on Sunday was Keep Moving!
Sorry, no chance of this bug magnet stopping for photos. Two hours and forty five minutes on trail. Stop time: about 30 seconds.
The phone did ring once, and thinking I was in the clear because I was in the vortex and out in the open sun, I dug it out and answered. In the seconds that it took to get the phone out of it's ziploc, a four fly attack registered from my backside to my brain and off I rode like a startled mustang, phone in one hand, handlebar in the other, and none leftover to swat with.
Pedaling around the open vortex, phone in hand, provided fly-by opportunity to shoot stationary targets.
Gadget Guru, Tomcat, Northstar
Wooden ramps at the top of cliffs surrounding the Vortex send riders soaring to land on contoured piles of dirt. When I asked what the plan was for this one, there was something about turning mid air and landing 90 degrees from the take off angle. I'm not sure. I was pedaling; made for a spotty interview.
As usual, the camera reduces the scare factor to look about a tenth
as death defying as it looks in person. It will take another visit on a day with no horse flies, for me to take the slow-go trail to the top of the cliff to see what the camera can reduce that view to!
*******************
By committing to the horsefly hell of Santos on Sunday, we missed out on the Wickham Park Marathon, the kookiest, all time best Marathon, 50, 100, and 200 Mile Fun Run, anywhere, ever!
This off road run is a stage race consisting of four consecutive days, 50 miles per day. Anyone not making the twelve hour cut off time each day is ineligible to continue the next day.
Wednesday's run in the park after work provided a bonus sighting of Matt Mahoney accompanying the one and only Joe Ninke, now the only human to have ever completed the 200 Mile Fun Run twice.
Joe was at about his 198th mile of the 200 when I saw him. He looked fresh and chatty, way better off than me at my 20 minute mark!
The WPM,50,100,200MFR started 4 days ago, the morning we were swatting horseflies in Santos.
It went on through Memorial Day while Popeye dug up pool plumbing, and we had a relaxing cocktail hour on Scout and PieMan's boat.
It continued through Tuesday, back to work day,
through all of Wednesday,
until Wednesday evening, when we drove to the park after work for our usual mid week trail run.
Talk about staying in motion every moment!
Not only did Joe Ninke stay in motion all day, every day, for 4 consecutive days, but he did it entirely without horse fly motivation!
Wow.
To see photos of the marathon, and Joe holding his prize for 1st place (a fake rock), check out:
200 miles. 43 hours, 10 minutes, 30 seconds, no horse flies.
Wow.
Wow.
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Interesting read about the Santos trip but it's okay that I didn't enter the "horse fly race" (but missed seeing you and friends).
ReplyDeleteHorse riders were at Alva Sunday and the flies kept buzzing after the horses rode off. Capt B said it was pretty bad.