Kris Freeman

For the record, Kris does have the ability to contribute to this website. He simply chooses not to make use of it. Probably because I do such an amazing job of describing his life. Anyway, Brayton Osgood (who set-up this site for us) recently observed that if Justin had access to the site he might actually contribute something from time to time. I’ve just sent him a user-name and password in response to the following e-mail:

I think you need to clarify what it means that Kris had a “much, much easier time” on the second bike ride:

Kris met me at my house 45 miles into his ride. He had just added an extra loop that had a lot more elevation than he planned, so he was a bit late and claimed to be tired. Being generous, and figuring after I had crushed him in a running race that I might be able to keep up with him, I led more than half of the first 20 miles, despite feeling rusty from not having ridden for two weeks. I even did my share for the next 15 miles (at which point the ride was already as long as any I had done this season).
We stopped to refuel and then started up the Kancamagus highway. I knew I felt a little tired, so I only led a little, and then not at all, and as the climb got steeper (say, 4% grade) gave up and told Kris to go ahead without me. Kris later told me that he thought we were going easy; after all, we were only traveling 16 mph and he didn’t notice that it wasn’t flat.
I suffered my way over the top of the pass and started down the other side. Eventually I met Kris, who had turned around and ridden back to find me. He was confused. He was wondering where the big climb was. After all, we just hadn’t gone up that much and this road was supposed to be hard. (For those who don’t know New Hampshire, the Kancamagus is a steady climb of 2100 vertical feet. As far as I know, the only climb on a public highway in New England that exceeds the elevation gain of the west side of the Kanc is the East side of the Kanc. Most likely it would be rated a Category 2 climb by UCI).
To rehash, when he dropped me, Kris had just climbed 700 feet without noticing he had left the flat, and he proceeded to climb 1400 more and was still wondering where the hard part was.
I fell in behind him and drafted for about 30 miles. Eventually I eased in to doing some of the work and by the last ten miles of the ride was leading almost half of the time.
Then we got within half a mile of my house. There is a hill. Not a big one, but definitely something you notice (unless you are Kris). He put about 40 seconds into me in half a mile. I was pretty much sprinting; Kris wasn’t being mean to me, rather he was just holding pace because he didn’t believe in the hill.
I took a shower, ate a large pizza, and went to bed. Kris rode another 40 miles in under two hours.