Bear Lake Bike Weekend

This was our third year in a row to go down to Bear Lake for the Bear Lake Classic bike race.  We have had great weather the past two years and finally hit a rainy weekend this time.  We drove down Friday afternoon, after dentist appointments for Emmett and I.  We made it in time to swim before picking up Jim's race packet and having dinner.  

Beautiful turquoise water, the Caribbean of the Rockies

 Saturday morning we were up early to get Jim to the race.  It was rainy and low 40s, Jim's goal was just to finish.  Last year he got first place in the race, and the year before he was 2nd.  There didn't seem to be nearly the number of people as years before, but it was still pretty well attended.  Jim doesn't have the best rain gear for a race and improvised a plastic "rain slicker" from a garbage bag for under his jersey (you can see the sleeves in the pictures).  He also put hand warmers in his gloves since numb hands caused him to not finish his last race.  Some people looked really well prepared with race worthy rain gear, other people appeared to be just in shorts and short sleeve jerseys. 

 Jim said he stayed just barely warm enough but his hands still got numb.  He managed to stay with the lead pack of riders, about 12 guys and then had a flat tire at mile 46 of 51.  According to his cyclometer it took him about 13 minutes to change his tire (the wheel car with his extra wheel showed up just as he was getting the new tire on).  He finished the race and was glad for that.  According to the posted results he was 28th out of 35.

 

Normally while he is racing I take the boys to the fun city park nearby.  Because it was starting to rain pretty hard we decided to go swimming instead.  Both boys had a great time, especially sharing some toys that another family had brought.  Apparently I need to invest in some pool toys.  Ezra was hilarious in his life jacket, it is the infant kind that flips them on their back if they aren't upright.  He'd be walking around the kids pool (2 ft. deep) and lose his footing and get flipped immediately onto his back and get stuck that way.  He did well without the life jacket on too.  Emmett enjoyed wearing his puddle jumper.  The boys followed directions well and did well to not throw fits when it was time to be done.  We weren't exactly sure when Jim would be done, but we wanted to have a warm car waiting for him, so we got a movie for the car and sat in the parking area waiting for Jim. 

 

We went back to the condo for lunch and naps.  In the afternoon we finished the movie that we had started in the car and then went to the city park while there was a small break in the weather.  We came back to the condo for dinner and then we went swimming again after dinner.  The boys were pretty well worn out and went to bed and Jim and I managed to stay up and watch a movie. 

Sunday morning we got up and made a big breakfast.  We got somewhat packed up and then headed to the pool for a final time.  Emmett did great floating and paddeling with his puddle jumper.  Ezra is a little more adventurous, although he didn't like the big pool because it was colder.  Jim got the car packed while I got the boys dressed and took them to a small playground.

We checked out just before noon and went out for lunch: burgers, fries and famous Bear Lake raspberry milkshakes.  We drove through some pretty rainy weather and stopped at Costco, about 2/3 of the way home.  We did some shopping and then made it the rest of the way home, in time to work in the yard and play outside.

 

Jim has been working on emptying water out of his bike and trying to get it all dry.  He couldn't believe where he found water, lots of "sealed" areas of the bike had turned into water resevoirs.  It is so fun to do the same trip at the same time of year multiple years in a row.  It really shows you how your kids change over the years.  I hope we can continue to make this a tradition!