Fool's Gold 100

What I did on my summer vacation. Seriously, I took my first vacation day of the summer for the Fool's Gold trip (work has been killing me). Road trippin with the Simonson's is always entertaining, so that part was fun. The race? I'm not so sure this one was fun. It started out as a race but, for me, it quickly turned into a survival mission when the pouring rain (3.75 inches) arrived just a few miles in. It had been about a month and a half since I installed my chain and cassette (2000 miles). I thought I'd try and get one more race out of them. In hindsight, I'm glad I wasted the old stuff in this race but the chain-suck was ridicules. Seemed like I had to back pedal every other pedal stroke to unwind the chain. Then there was everyone's favorite issue of the day, no brakes. By mile 25, guys I was riding with started to loose their brakes. I saw a guy crash pretty hard as a result. He was OK but I'd learn later he went to the hospital and got some stitches. My rear brake was gone by mile 35 and the front was getting really weak. From there on, when the decent got steep I'd walk down it to save the little bit of front break that was left. I was even draging my foot a bit, Flintstone's style. I carried a good multi tool, 2 tubes, a patch kit, Co2s, mini pump, 2 master links and a short section of chain in my jersey pocket for this race but no spare pads (Note to self... carry spare break pads). I did have pads in the car and was planing to install them for the second lap but the promoter put us out of our misery and shortened the race to 1 lap and as much as I like to ride my bike that made me smile today.