Nuclear Bike Race

I had my first bicycling road race today. The course took us 26 miles around the old Satsop cooling towers (they never had active reactors) and through farmland near Elma, WA. Sarah (holding up the wheels in the picture) won our women's race of 48 riders. All the Valley team women stayed on the front of the peloton the entire race until the long exhausting uphill finish. I just don't have the fitness for hills yet this year, so I lost position, almost dropping my chain, for a 31st place finish. The cool thing about road racing is that when a team mate comes in first, everyone on the team feels like a winner because the team works together throughout the race. It was a blast, but I'm still a cyclocrosser!