Chilly Hilly, 40th anniversary edition. Completed the ride very slowly with 5 other people, and saw quite a few people I knew - Justin on his Bamboo bike from Peterson Cycles, Peter Poirer, Rob V (the Windows Phone client team manager that I work with), William H (who relieved me of the 1 gal Triflow container at work and took it to a new home) and Alex Weinert from Owain’s Army. Overall, this has been the best Chilli Hilly yet.
Had a very good ride overall. Loosening the cones on the rear hub did wonders to my speed. I did the running around between the fast and slow riders and managed to organize frequent regroups. On the Baker hill, I was pacing off one other guy, who clearly had his life flashing before his eyes… when we neared the top, I said, “thanks for letting me pace off you” and as he realised I was on a singlespeed, I took off up the hill at 17 mph, which got a “OMGz” sort of reaction, complete with verbal exclamation. Al missed us at the peak of the hill, so I chased down his 2 min head start and managed to have him regroup with the rest that way. Susan had been having mechanical issues all the way through the ride, and finally shortly after regrouping snapped her chain. I pulled out my toolkit, pulled a master link from the bag, and in the space of 5 minutes had her old links off, and the new master link installed (bottom left photo). The guys were amazed that I had the parts and tools on hand, which made me chuckle. What made it even funnier was I pulled off with David, reached the finish line before the others and saw Alex. While we were talking she pulled up and thanked me… Alex responded with, “yeah, Kris is the person you want around when something goes wrong” which got a few smiles from everyone there. Definitely made the difference.
Bike: Surly Steamroller, 47x18.
Gear: UnderArmor LS shirt & pants, Pearl Izumi LS thermal shirt, Hincapie vest, Hincapie Diablo bibs, Louis Garneau 0 Ergo Grip shoe, Pearl Izumi Barrier gloves.
In the bag: Blanket (unused), scarf, GPS tracker, phone, keys, lots of Clif bars, standard toolkit, Crank Bros 19 Multi Tool.
