One of the joys of riding in an event such as Bike Virginia is the chance to ride along roads for seemingly endless miles without stopping for a stop light or for traffic. Most roads we encountered were major backroads that had no stop signs for many, many miles. And, at major intersections, they had Police stopping traffic to wave you on. This meant we could open up and hammer with only the wind in front of us.
When I use the word hammer, the man that comes to mind is Dean "The Dream". Dean was part of our foursome and is a former Elite class runner who, up until knee surgery while in his 40s, was running at a 5:30/mile pace at local 10K and 5 mile races. To someone like myself who has yet to break a 9:00/mile pace, this is a seeming impossibility!
Now, you take the Dream and you put him in a gym for a few years, have him take spin classes and do multi hour elliptical workouts and then set him loose on Bike Virginia and what do you think you get? An explosion that is impressive to watch. Even at the end of a 100 mile day at pretty impressive speeds, Dean was still ready to hammer and I bet he had another 100 miles in him for that day.
While I know some folks in my bike club that would give their left nut to have Dean's skills, Dean is humble to the core about his talent (and hard work). No fancy bike shirts sporting Italian racing vendors. No tatoos. No carbon bike with aero bars. No shirts that say "Stop Whinning and Keep Climbing" (yes, we did see such shirts on our tour).
For Dean it's a Garciapara Tshirt, racing shoes and an off the rack low end racer for a bike that he keeps in mothballs in Virgina to be ridden twice maybe three times a year. During BVA, the Dream was at times moving so fast people didn't have enough time to read that name on the back of his shirt. Oh yeah, there was this one fellow who managed to get a glimpse of it and so he says to Dean "Funny, you don't look Spanish." And that conversation confirmed that intelligent tests are not a prerequisite to riding Bike Virginia.
One particular ride, we spot a pace line with members in matching shirts. The logo across the back reads -- "The Lard Butts". In a classic case of understatement (or is it irony), they proceed to whiz by us. Dean mentions that he remembered seeing them on a former BVA ride and that they were a pretty fast group despite their name. Next time around, we caught up with them and they pulled us for a good 20 miles without one stop, averaging between 22-24 MPH. It was an amazing pull, and although I have been on faster pulls, never for that long a distance. Dean turns around to look at me, beaming, he states, "You know I love this". Did I mention that the Dreams other nickname is the Flash?
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