Those wise words from Jan (which I originally mis-quoted as the “accomplishment” rather than “pride”), one of several witnesses to the passing of the torch. Yes, today, June 23, 2011, Kevin dropped me on Kings Mtn. And it’s not as if he dropped me when I was having a bad day. He posted a more-than-respectable time of 26:30, with me trailing 10 seconds behind. Normally, I would have been very happy getting the 26-minute-monkey off my back. I’d been wondering how long before I got a decent (for me) time up the hill, and a bit concerned that my (up to now) slightly-slower rides with Kevin might have held back my shape a bit.

It was on June 10th, just two weeks ago, that Kevin finally got below 30 minutes on Kings. That was a big deal. Then a week later, he knocked off a minute and a half with a 28:16. I thought that was pretty darned good. And now this. 26:30. Probably close to my best time last year (but at this point, I vow to do better than that this year!).

Witnesses? Karl, Jan, Millo & Terry (whom had left a bit earlier and we passed near the top), Marcus. Eric, Karen, “pilot” Kevin & John were fortunate not to be there, fortunate because they don’t have to worry about whether they were witnesses to something that could put them in danger.

There was no question that Kevin had put everything into his effort; there wasn’t much left of him at the top, so little in fact that he couldn’t hang onto the group’s moderate pace across Skyline. He did recover reasonably well by the time we got to west-side Old LaHonda though, where he rode fairly strongly, but frankly, at that point, I exploited whatever advantage I had and rode on ahead. He still had enough fight left in him to try and take the last two sprints, and I still had enough left in me to not let that happen.

26:30. If he keeps this up, and if I get my act together, something in the 25 range is a definite possibility. For me, that would set the clock back quite a few years. For Kevin, who knows?