Apr 18, 2012

Don't Dance When You Zipline!


Our team director Rachel Heal noticed a great bargain on a group purchasing site for ziplining.  We hopped in the Optum team van and went to the 2 year old Beanstalk Journey site, an hour from Asheville, NC.

It was pouring rain on our scheduled ziplining day, but we're not woosies.  We geared up in some of our Champion Systems rain gear, my teammate Courteney lent me some closed-toe shoes, I put my teammate, Emma's mom (who lives in England!) down as my emergeny contact on my waiver, and we were off.

I thought it would be funny to do a little butt-wiggle on the third zipline into our adventure (which was significantly slower paced than what we're used to racing our Orbea bicycles, mostly because of the clipping and unclipping from the ropes and wires on the course).  Butt-wiggling is not aerodynamic though and I inadvertantly slowed myself down so much that I got caught in the middle of the line and had to be rescued.  For the remainder of the ziplining adventures I took every piece of advice into account that our friend Dino from HED Wheels gave us on aerodynamics.  I ended up flying into every landing with ease.  Dino is a wise, wise man.

What a fun off-the-bike team activity.  Here is a video:


Tomorrow's menu: A ride on and around the Blueridge Parkway (it's like a mega-huge Parc de la Mauricie!) followed by some motorpacing and "grilling out" with the girls.  I've got to think about what kind of meat I want to bring and who I could get to help me cook it...I'm used to eating my meat out of a can.  Gotta love smoked herring.

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