Distance: 50 miles
Terrain: Flat
Conditions: Slight headwind
Two days ago Kyle Marpe told me that he'd ride with me on this day. At Pizza Hut he was talking with Luke and Derek about how he was riding with them. When I jokingly gave him trouble about telling me he'd ride with me, he claimed not to remember. Instead of giving him more trouble, I decided to tell him that I'd build a bigger, stronger, faster pace line and beat him to the finish. Then, the challenge began. I immediately recruited Jason - a pretty strong rider. As I asked around to find a third, everyone was taken. It just wound up being Jason and me taking on Team Marpe. Kyle can definitely hold his own, and his pace line that consisted of Derek and Luke was really only going to help him more. We dubbed the unofficial race the first annual "Grand Island Cup."
When the morning came, we all circled up and were told that today would be pretty easy. Flat and smooth - perfect for speed. Marpe and I flipped a coin and I won the toss, so Jason and I got to take off from lodging first. We left as the second pace line. We were off to a great start and were pulling over 20mph. About 7 miles in, I was blessed with a flat tire. As Jason and I stopped and scurried to fix it, Team Marpe passed us up while laughing their heads off at my misfortune. Jason and I tried to move as fast as we could but eventually the sweeps caught up to us. We were officially the last pace line. By the time we finally got moving we were WAY behind Team Marpe. Shortly after fixing the flat, we got stuck waiting for a train to pass. However, we weren't giving up there. We took turns pulling for short distances so that we could stay at high speeds. We averaged over 20 mph the whole time! We were banking on Team Marpe either stopping at a crew stop or just not trying, assuming that they would win. As Jason and I kept pulling and pulling and passing pace lines, we kept asking the lines that we passed how far ahead Team Marpe would be. Everyone kept saying that they were way ahead and that we would have to keep booking it to catch up. Well, we did just that. At about mile 37, we passed up yet another crew stop. This time, Team Marpe was there shoving their faces with the leftover donuts from breakfast. They saw Jason and I ride by and scurried to get on their bikes and catch back up. For the last ten miles, it was an all out sprint. Jason and I could only draft off of each other, but Team Marpe had three people to use as pullers. Team Blake managed to stay ahead the whole time, and saw the finish line. However, it was a left hand turn and we had to cross oncoming traffic. Jason and I stopped for the oncoming traffic. When it was time to roll out and traffic was clear, Team Marpe still had momentum and just swung right by us to cross the finish line literally seconds before we did.
Thus, it really depends who you ask if you want to know who won the Cup. Jason and I would claim we won on the basis of having to wait for traffic. Team Marpe wo
uld claim they won an account of getting lucky at the end. Either way, Kyle and I have agreed to make The Grand Island Cup a tradition. Next year, we will pit a TCU pace line vs. a Purdue pace line against each other. Winner takes the Grand Island Cup trophy - a pack of Pokemon cards.
We staged up and went to our hotel for the next two days. Waiting for us at the arrival were a lot of people with disabilities from local centers that have been seeing us for many years. I got interviewed by a local radio station. First it's the newspaper, now the radio - be on the lookout for my biographical documentary.
Later on we had a friendship visit dance. Everyone broke it down on the dance floor like crazy and we met some amazing people. The dances are always my favorite since our whole team gets so into it. You can always bank on our new friends to be getting into it too.
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