[CR]SoCal Mt. Baldy ride report from the other side...

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Date: Tue, 28 Nov 2006 22:32:13 -0500 (EST)
From: <chasds@mindspring.com>
To: classicrendezvous@bikelist.org
Subject: [CR]SoCal Mt. Baldy ride report from the other side...

My girlfriend and tandem-partner, Carmen, wanted to give her take on our recently concluded ride to Baldy Village (for my report, check the archives)--vintage content: we did the ride on our 1980s Jack Taylor tandem, TA cranks, Duopar derailleur. It performed flawlessly, as it always does--here's Carmen's take:

Mt. Baldy uphill comments: The weather was pleasant. The air was crisp and cool. Birds sang and played in the rocks and trees that were left black from previous fires. The view was magnificent. The quiet was calming with intermittent, light conversation. The ride was hard. But when you go 3mph, it\u2019s doable. Toward the end of the uphill, I noticed we were really up there and what goes up, must come down. Uh, oh!

Mt. Baldy downhill comments: If you think careening down a mountain at speeds that will give you a face lift is fun, then I must be the luckiest girl alive. Oh, that reminds me. Several questions flashed through my head, seconds after we started our descent and in between all the screaming from the back of the tandem \u2013 Is our life insurance paid up? What\u2019s my underwear situation? Is my head still attached to my body? How do they scrape bodies off the side of a mountain? If I kill Charles, would anyone blame me?

I used to think I had guts. I mean, I\u2019ve eaten menudo more than once. But after 4:00 pm on 11/10/06, I now know what guts is, and I ain\u2019t got it \u2013 by choice! If it\u2019s true that turkey\u2019s faces change color when they\u2019re excited, then that day, I became a turkey. And not the oh boy, let\u2019s do it again kind of excitement. More like, oh boy, how can I get out of this, on-the-verge-of-hysteria kind of excitement. I went from a pale pink, to cheap copy paper white. You know, the transparent kind with lots of grey?

At some point Charles was yelling out, \u201cIsn\u2019t this great? Look how beautiful it is!\u201d

I don\u2019t know. It\u2019s really hard to see vistas through eyelids shut so tight, the Jaws of Life contraption thingy would be useless in prying them open. I managed to peek now and then to make sure Charles was still there and to know which way to lean through the turns that I was told WOULD NOT BE THERE!

Would I do it again? Gladly \u2013 as long as I get helicoptered out before the downhill.

So, now that we know who wears the guts in our family, here\u2019s my plea. If any of you on the CR list notices that I\u2019ve shown up for a ride that includes a downhill portion that\u2019s comparable to the downhill ride I just managed to live through on 11/10/06 , please, TELL ME, so I can run like a bat outta hell. Because, frankly, too much fun can kill a girl.

(Carmen is too modest. She rode flawlessly on that downhill, as she always does, and I did more whining than she did on a ride that was very tough, and longer than either of us intended it to be...she's a pearl among women).

Charles Andrews
SoCal