capybaras in the nut house

the team met at the (well-named) nut house in palo alto wednesday night: chad, tc, mindy, and me. time for logistics. who's arranging for support vehicle, where do we meet, what do we need, who's bringing what, when are we traveling, etc., etc. there are probably ten thousand details to cover, and chad was on lots of them. we divvied up responsibilities, figured car logic, talked a little event riding strategy, got our team jerseys. they look good, but i'm now thinking that those black shoulders we chose are going to cause us some grief. mindy tried to talk us out of them, but would we listen to her? mad dogs and englishmen, as they say...

here's the deal. we're going to do the furnace creek 508 as a four-person relay. check out http://www.the508.com. in just five weeks, we'll ride our bikes through five hundred eight miles of mojave desert and death valley in less than 48 hours. did i mention the mountains? there's 35000' of vertical ahead. at any point in the race, the three other team members will serve as support crew for the rider currently on the bike, while resting up for our turn on the bike. the race is divided into eight stages, and the riders must go in order A-B-C-D-A-B-C-D so that the stage 1 rider also rides stage 5, and so on. there are tons of other rules, but really, the whole thing is just a lunatic bicycling adventure...

this will be unlike any bike ride i've ever known. i'm not worried about the physical challenge (like tc says, it's only 130 miles, how hard could it be? unfortunately, tc is insane.), but the monumental logistical concerns make me realize that there are only about a million things that could go wrong that would prevent us from finishing. i mean, i already won a california triple crown together this crowd this year, we've all already gotten plenty of that 'i am such a badass' satisfaction from riding those double centuries. i don't need to finish this event to prove anything, either to myself or to anyone else. or maybe that's just the kmart buddhist in me, practicing nonattachment to finishing... so why are we doing it? it's just there...

lunacy, i'm telling you. look it up. i'm sure our behavior meets seven of the nine diagnostic criteria. i mean, people, we organized the logistics in a bar called the NUT HOUSE, are you with me?