Lowes Time Trial #2

Wednesday, June 9 was the 2nd race of the Lowes time trial series in Charlotte. After the first race last month, we decided that we needed to sweeten the deal for our monthly household competition with a trophy of some kind. After scouring the local thrift stores, we had narrowed down the possible prize to a 1999 Budweiser Christmas beer stein, an unused urn, and a creepy Spanish doll. We finally settled on a humongous band festival trophy that was buried in Amy's band storage room. We now truly had the motivation to beat the other and be the first winner of the newly-christened Lakeview Cup, pictured above in all its splendor. Actually, what's left of all its splendor, because several pieces broke off as I tried to tighten it up. Hard to imagine it any bigger.

Getting in our warmups before hitting the track with friend and new roadie convert Paul. Photo courtesy of Paul's cousin John Patterson.

Paul sprints away from the start house, his face a picture of determination. Photo courtesy of John Patterson.

Paul en route to a 28 minute, 34 second test. His start line focus paid off, and he shaved a whopping 4 minutes off of his time from last month. Was it that he was riding Amy's bike? His newly shaved legs? His steely start-line gaze?

With Amy having a lot of racing in her legs, and myself finally getting underway with some structured training, we both felt that we had PRs in our legs for the night.

Hitting the finish line.

Amy is stunned to find out that I beat her, but by only seven seconds. To paraphrase French cycling legend Jaques Anquetil's famous quote after winning the Tour de France by what was then the smallest margin in history, "It was six more than necessary." Fortunately, we met our real goal of continuing to improve our individual times, setting new PRs in the process. In addition, Amy's time of 25 minutes, 19 seconds was good for first place in the Women's Cat 4 division.

Ah, the sweet spoils of victory. After hearing about last month's result from what seemed like every human being Amy came in contact with, I was glad to call the former symbol of junior high band prowess my own.

Mugging with good dude Will Turk, who took all of the non-John photos above.