The other night, Lorena and I were out on a ride (I know, big surprise) and decided our cross bikes were more appropriate given some gravel roads on our route and wet roads from an earlier freak rainstorm. Coming back into Navarre at the end of the ride, there was an unspoken decision to sprint for the city limit sign on Elton Rd. I say "unspoken" because neither one of us talked about sprinting for the sign and it simply got faster and faster until we were both out of the saddle hammering.
Lorena was sitting in my draft with half a mile to go and I just kept gradually ramping up the speed. I finally dropped to my 12 with about 100 meters to go, got in the drops, and out of the saddle. I heard Lorena shift and the sound of her tires let me know she was sprinting too. We were both going as hard as we could and I was out of gear. Lorena came out of my draft and I think she got one more shift in as she was right beside me before beating me by about half a bike-length at the sign.
Anybody who has raced a bike knows the crazy mix of emotions that go through your mind as you're going full-tilt only to watch someone else pull away and it feels like there's nothing you can do about it, even in friendly competition. When it's your wife, there's an extra emotion thrown in and that's pride. Not in the sense that my pride was hurt, but in the sense of being proud that Lorena is strong enough to out-sprint me on occasion. It's not the first time she's beaten me in a sign sprint and probably won't be the last. As many of the guys in the Orrville B-group can attest, she keeps you on your toes because she'll sneak in ahead of you when you least suspect and it's too late to react.
The only excuse I can muster is that she had me out-geared. My new cranks only have a 46-tooth big ring while she has a 48. She also has an 11 on her cassette while I only have a 12. Oh yeah, and I probably had lower tire pressure and
