February 5, 2008

Riding for the New York Giants...Posted by Spoon

Hello everyone,
I hope this finds you all healthy and happy. Here`s a little story about my Super Bowl weekend.
Wow!!! What a game. A couple things made it even sweeter for me. Over the course of the playoffs we had been in more and more remote areas through Argentina, so it got harder and harder to see the games. The first one I had no chance to see. The second one we busted our asses for, but when we got to the town we wanted we could not find a TV with it on. So we we hammered all week and got into a town just before the Green Bay game and had it on in our hotel room. It was great, we had pizza and beer, the whole 9 yards. And that was a great game. So the Giants are in the Super Bowl and we had 2 weeks to get to a town big enough that might have the game. It´s not easy to find "Football Americano" down here in Patagonia, they don´t give a shit about it. So anyway, we had been killing miles at this point already, We just rode 720 miles in 6 days to see the Green Bay game. Then we looked at the map and the only town that looked good for the Super Bowl was way down the map. The boys, Jake and Duncan, are both from NY, but don´t care as much as I do about the Giants. They were a little doubtful about our goal. But I just kept saying "we got it". So we are doing pretty well, 2 days out with 215 miles left, the other guys are looking a little tired. So I told them they did not have stay with me, but they kept saying, "no, no, we´ll try". That night I stayed in a hotel and they camped out, they are saving money. I asked them to meet me early so we can get a good jump on the 215 we needed, but they were a little late. So I left them a note and left without them. That first day I had great traveling conditions. No real wind, The wind can be really bad down here. And riding by yourself is so much easier and faster. So that day I ended up with 171.74 miles, beating my old best day by 40 miles. The other guys ended up with 142, which was 10 better than the previous best. But the next day the wind picked up big time, the worst we´ve seen on this whole trip. A cross wind of 50 to 70 mph. It was crazy! But I only had 55 miles to go and I knew the road went with the wind for the last 20. So I battled through the wind and got to the point were I had the tail wind and did not pedal again all the way into Rio Gallegos, "Super Bowl town" as we called it for those 2 weeks. The tail wind was amazing. It pushed me up to 40 mph across the flats and even got me up the few small hills I had, I was passing cars in town, all without pedaling. I got into town with 4 hours to spare. But Jake and Duncan didn´t make it. They got beat down by the wind and said screw it and hid from the wind the best they could behind their bikes and trailers in a ditch, until the next morning. I found a cheap hotel and a nice cafe with a sweet big screen plasma TV. No one else was there. So I was jumping around and yelling at the TV all by myself. The girls who worked there were laughing at me. And my boys won! That made it all well worth it. Now we just have 5 days left to Ushuaia to win our own Super Bowl.
I´ll be home around the 15th of Feb. I hope to see everyone sometime soon after that. Montgomery (my home town) is putting on it`s 35th annual People´s Prom (big dance party) sat. May 31st. This year it looks like Jake´s (my teammate) family's band (The Christine Spero Group) will be playing. I would love for all of you to attend and meet the A2A team. We may even do a slide show the night before.
Keep in touch.

Ride on,
Spoon

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