We started early, arriving at the meeting point at the base at 5 AM.  It was still dark.  We drove two vehicles up to the start point.  Besides Deiter, former pro cyclist Chris Huber, a tennis pro from the Hilton named Tim (who would ride a dirt bike) and a chiropractor named Ed also joined us.  Deiter had arranged for a young fellow to follow us in one of the trucks.  He was to carry extra aid and allow us a place to drop clothing or our bodies as we saw fit.  It didn’t quite work out.

When we got to the start point darkness gave way to a misty light.  It was raining pretty hard and it was cool but we’d all brought extra clothing – except Chris who’d forgotten one of his bags.  He decided to stay in the truck until we’d dropped down to some warmer temperatures.  The launching point looked like the surface of the moon.  There was not the slightest sign of vegetation – just black lava flow as far as the eye could see, which was not far.

T-Mac was keen to hit it and was two hundred meters in front of us before anyone else made a pedal stroke.  The locals on the ride took to calling us the Canadians.  They found our disregard for the weather amusing.  At any rate, we headed off. 

For a descent of this scale we sure did a lot of climbing.  In fact the first twenty minutes was virtually up hill.  I had three mechanicals in the first eighteen minutes and almost died each time.  This was not a place to go down.  The road was made up of cabbage sized lava rocks - sharp as knifes everywhere.  If you got going too fast on the downhill things could get out of hand quickly and I could not recall a mountain bike that I’d done in the past year where I hadn’t come off at least twice.

At one point, during one of the few times I was leading the charge, the rain was coming down particularly fierce and the descent was getting fast.  I knew if I even thought about tapping my breaks I’d be getting shredded by those rocks.  I was squinting to see when suddenly, out of the gloom, there was a grave sized crevice in the middle of the road.  I barely had time to avoid it and didn’t have time to signal those behind me.  I listened for the sounds of twisting metal and screams and was relieved to hear none.  Peter had stopped for a nature break a few minutes earlier so after a bit we stopped and waited for him.  He took a long time.  When he finally did catch up to us he was covered in dirt.  “Did you guys see that gully in the middle of the road?”  We had, we told him.  “Yeah, I didn’t” he said.  He’d gone in hard.  His wrist was sore but he was otherwise good to continue.  He commented that he didn’t feel he had good control on this ride.  His front end seemed to be washing out a lot.  I told him to check his air.  The same thing had been happening to me earlier.  His air was fine but when he gave the tire a squeeze he realized his front wheel was hanging on his forks by the safety catches only.  His skewer was completely loose!

After a few hours the rain let up, the sun came out and we moved from the moon to Middle Earth.  The terrain was spectacular and the riding was nothing short of epic.  But it started to get hot and we were all out of water.  Our sag truck was no where to be seen.  Tim, on the motocross, went back to find it and we carried on.  Soon I had to stop and take off all the extra clothes.  It felt like I was carrying a baby on my back and my tongue was like a stick in my mouth.  Still no truck and we were pushing three hours out there.  We would learn later that the young guy driving the truck got it stuck.  I did the 3.5 hour ride on a bottle of water and two gels.  It wasn’t much different for the other guys.  When we hit the taco stand in Waimea we ate that sucker out everything it had!

In the end I feel comfortable saying it was the best ride of my life.

So that was that.

Now how about this race?  They’re still talking about.  When I say “they” I mean mostly the dudes on Slowtwitch – but that’s a lot of dudes!  The gist is, Normann, shortly after finishing the race accused Macca of cheating.  He went so far as to do it publicly in a Triathlete interview.  Macca got mad and in a retaliatory interview he, with much humour but little grace, stated that Normann showed poor form by doing this.  So the chat rooms are now filled with Normann fans squaring off against Macca fans – who’s the better athlete, who’s the bigger dick and who will win next year?  There’s also been a lot of speculation on whether all this acrimony is good for the sport.  Of course it is.  Nothing brought people to the sport of boxing like Ali and Forman.  And tennis only benefited when McEnroe and Connors got into it.  Next year a ton of people will tune in to see who wins – only to be disappointed to watch the two of them come 3^rd and 4^th.

Finally, as I mentioned earlier, I was trying to talk Pete into doing IMC with me next year.  I thought I was making good ground there and apparently I was.  I made good ground alright – too good.  As we were waiting for our plane to take us out of Kona he, out of the blue, upped the ante.  If I could qualify for Hawaii, he’d come back next year with his bike.  He made it clear, he was not coming out of retirement and he’d be the last pro to finish (I don’t believe that under any circumstances).  I have always sworn I would not race in Hawaii.  I’ve biked that highway and was very nearly blown off my ride.  I have never seen it as a race but a quest for survival.  I have never wanted to make that quest.  So I had to ask myself a few questions – do I want to do that “race” and do I believe I can qualify for it?  The answer is yes and no.  Yes, I would now like to do the race.  After volunteering out at the Energy Lab I realized I’d like to test my metal against the Kona elements but do I think I can qualify?  That’s, in all honesty, unlikely.  I don’t have the time or the money to fly around the world looking for a soft race – and I’d need one.  I train too little and drink too much.  So that leaves me with the lottery.  I’ll certainly throw my name into the hat but it seems there’s a better chance of getting a date with Winona Ryder – and, as I don’t know her nor do we have any mutual friends, that puts it just slightly above zero percent chance.