goodbye jim

i have to say that i take back everything i never said about jim.  he's one of my heroes.  as we get older, the inevitable question that keeps coming up is 'how long can we keep doing this stuff?'   and john clark used to talk about the battle of attrition.  we start placing in races because there are just fewer of us.  sooner or later we can when our age group, because we're the only one left.  assuming, of course, you are the one left.

 i use both jim and john as gold standards:  if i can just still be able to do what they do at their age.   the problem is that jim hasn't stopped.  as we were  doing one of our major climbs the other day, i had to ask myself  "is this what i want to be doing at 65, killing myself going up a mountain in 90 degree heat?   will i even be capable of doing this?"   jim is five years older than me, so i have to keep doing this for five years just to keep up with him (oh, and we're not a competitive bunch).  the problem is that he has to stop before i can even start on making up those five years.

jim is incredibly consistant.  he pedels away at the same pace, doesn't get excited and speed up for anthing.  i did feel the need to spur him a little when we were riding in the middle of the lane on the I-82 bridge over the coumbia.  the one thing that does take a toll on him is the heat.  when we were in the high desert, i was worried. the 80 miles without shade really had him worn out.  a couple of gin & tonics and some white wine, a night in a hotel, a days rest, a dip in a cool mountain river, followed by beer and pizza.  that's all it took.  4 days, over 300 miles, and two 3,000 foot climbs later, we're in missoula, and he's looking good.  ready for an irish pub.

tomorrow morning we go separate ways.  he'll fly back to knoxville and i'll head up to glacier.  while i look forward to riding on my own for awhile, i will miss him.