I'm not dead

Last week illness completely kicked my ass!!  Annie had been sick the week before and I thought I made it through unscathed.  Just as she was getting better, my ass was handed to me.  Monday night it hit me, and I was out for the count all week.  I tried to get up for the 8 count on Friday, but just as I got to work I realized that wasn't going to happen so I left after half the day.

I'm finally getting my legs back under me, so I'll pick up where I left off... heading to stage there of the Tour de Charlotte.  We rolled through some neighborhoods on our way to our next stage at a city park.  As we were exiting the neighborhood someone realized where we were - Hidden Valley.  We had no issues rolling through en mass, and I noticed more than a few people seemingly enjoying our group as they held up their phones to take video of us passing through.  But, this is not a section of town that you would normally want to wander through.

Racers held up for a meeting and the party people took the trails to get to a good viewing spot.  The trails were a bit greasy and as we got close to our stopping spot we hit a nice little downhill which caused hesitation in more than a few riders.  It was a fun little run with a built in rock launch - I choose to keep my tires on the dirt as I rolled down.  I grabbed a spot to catch the action as the racers came through.  Most of the racers bypassed the jump, but every now and we had riders catching air.

Dicky was sweeping, but that didn't stop him from getting rad!

FM photographer Nik got rad himself

Irish Luke was at home in the mud and rocks

Then things picked up with rider after rider hitting the jump back to back

As the racers came through on their last lap the partiers jumped on the back and we all headed out of the park and hit the streets.  Beer was running low at this point so plans were starting to hatch to find a refill station on the way when we heard the most glorious thing that could ever be announced during a race - there would be a keg at the final stage!!  

One stage to go - and I will continue to stretch this out since I've done nothing but lay on the couch and watch crappy movie after crappy movie for the past week.  April is right around the corner and I'm motivated to jump on board the whole 30 Days of Biking shindig.  I'll talk about my plans for that on Wednesday I suppose.