A very busy, very beautiful weekend. On Saturday, Autumn did her very first road race, the Ken Woods Memorial Race sponsored by the Gopher Wheelmen and County Cycles. It was also her first race on the Wheelmen team. I volunteered at the race as a corner marshal, so it was my job to tell the racers to turn right, and try to keep the cars away from them. It was fun to watch the racers and cheer on the ones i knew. I didn’t get a lot of pictures, but I thought she did great, finishing 19/33 racers in her group. Here is Autumn coming through the finish line:
And here’s Malte resting after his race. Autumn raced with the Cat 4 women, and their race was 25 miles. Malte raced as a Cat 3, and they did 3 laps, or 63 miles. Malte had a fanastic race, hanging in the pack really well and finishing 4th.
On Sunday, i rode the Iron Crotch ride sponsored by County Cycles. It’s a largely unsupported fun ride that is a nice alternative to the really huge Ironman 100 mile ride. The Iron Crotch ride doesn’t have tents and corporate sponsors, but Ron stays up for a few days baking cookies, and has 3 well-placed rest stops on the route. I was going to do the long 60-mile route, but after a long day and late night, i scaled back to 25 instead. Autumn volunteered to work one of the rest stops, and she had a really fun time chatting with people and handing out fruit and water and cheese. Malte rode along with me, and we had fun just cruising along, chatting with people a couple of times along the route. It was a warm day, and Malte was thirsty after our short ride (space-time warp courtesy of a very cheap digital camera).
I don’t have any pictures of Malte’s 18th birthday party at our house Sunday night. We had friends over Sunday night to celebrate Malte turning 18, complete with a campfire in the back yard, singing and multiple cakes. We all had a great time, and slept very well. Hopefully we’ll have some pictures of the party to add soon.
Finally, a few new pictures of the girls, by popular demand:
