The training season has begun. Sub-forty degree temperatures didn’t phase the first Rocket Ride. 15 minutes into the ride it looked like a scene out of the Tour, with riders tapping-out a solid pace, stringing it out, blowing and pulling off the front. But we weren’t on slopes of the French Alps…it was Norway Hill…Puget Sound’s Galibier. Everyone’s toes warmed up going up Norway and it was “groupo compacto” by the time we hit the trail again. Next up was the Telegraph, I mean Hollywood Hill. The Rocket Ride shattered and regrouped with smaller group. But there were weary legs on the descent into the Snoqualmie Valley. The pace increased through the fog and endless rollers of the valley. All of a sudden it was a six-pack of riders in the front group. Entering the last hour of the ride the first bold-faced attack was thrown-down by Allan Schmitz. He bolted to a 20 meter, or so gap at the base of a hill. I looked over at TH and I knew that it was on…and Schmitz was in for it. TH didn’t scramble to the front and pull him back immediately. That’s when I knew we’d seen the last of Allan. Yeah, we pulled Allan back then he got HSPed. But I’ll give him the most aggressive award for that move. It was full-throttle the remainder of the ride. Six became four, then three. Yeah, that’s the Rocket Ride…bangin’ it out in the championship rounds.
The ride ends at the Woodinville Starbucks. And all the groups regrouped there and the wounds were healed with a little java and some basking in the October sun.
There were a couple Purple Hearts issued. Guy Tucker’s wheel exploded shortly after he did, and he finished in a cab. Joe Holmes rode like a beast all day and made all the selections. I think he was afraid to get dropped because he had no idea where he was. The last thirty minutes of the ride I looked at Joe and his eyes were crossed and he probably thought he was somewhere in France. But Joe turned himself inside out and made it to Starbucks with the leaders.

As we were rolling back on the BG to Log Boom Joe must have been thinking about the ferry schedule, or maybe those last few efforts were still lingering. As we rode by a set of those barriers that are on the trail to keep motor vehicles off I heard SNAP…ahhhhhrrgg. Not a normal sound. Not a sound of anything good. It was the sound of Holmes’ carbon bike snapping in two. Yeah, Joe steered away from the center (rubber) cone and smashed into the wood barrier. He was ok, not a scratch…on him. We scooped up Joe and the wreckage into the HSP van and laughed away Joe’s pain. What a ride!

-Rocket