At around 4500 feet above my sea level comfort zone sits the Biggest Little City in the World and the home of a Balkan ex-pat devoted to the pursuit of pain. Nenad. A wiry fellow standing about six feet tall with the sharp features one often finds on euro pros. Enter Jaffa and myself for a weekend at altitude. With a late arrival on Friday night after a relatively calm day of peddling parcels in the cold summer air of San Francisco, we hit the sack in anticipation of tomorrow’s drop ride.
Jaffa and Nenad have known each other for years and have ridden and traveled extensively together. I first met Nenad about three weeks ago while on a trip to the eastern extreme of the state of Oregon for the Elkhorn Classic Stage Race. Nenad is a triathalete of about Lance Armstrong’s age (this is probably the only similarity he would allow me to draw between himself and Le Boss) He had been very welcoming then, establishing an open door policy for those of us seeking some high desert punishment. Nenad had a giant Parrot- his name escapes me, but he had mastered the sound of, among other things, the telephone ringing, causing no small amount of confusion whenever he wished. Also calling the Reno retreat home was Bosco, the little blind doggy whom I accidentally renamed “Little Basso” [Ivan Basso is a pro cyclist who once showed great promise in the Tour as heir apparent to Lance, but had since returned from a doping suspension to underwhelming results] This really tickled Nenad for some reason.
I must take this opportunity to admit that I did, in fact have an ulterior motive in coming to Reno to train that weekend. With the Cascade Stage Race being mere weeks away and still not having a TT rig to call my own I arrived at the only reasonable conclusion: Roulette! The plan was quite simple: Drop Ride on Saturday morning, get really tired, sleep, The Eldorado Saturday evening, make $2000.00, sleep. Sunday morning get up and climb 9,000 ft. to the top of Mt. Rose and head home exhausted and wealthy. Let’s just say I accomplished two out of three…
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