10 Years of UAR: Tim

We added one new city to the nation's biggest bicycle obstacle adventure series tour in 2012. We've heard stories from the oldest UAR city, and now we'll hear one from the newest UAR city. Tim's story comes from Richmond.

Last year, my Dad was deployed in Afghanistan in the 29th Infantry Division of the Army National Guard. When he came back, after around thirteen months, you can imagine the excitement and relief of the whole family. The Urban Assault Ride was something fun I did with my Dad, just him and myself.  

We entered just for fun in the family division, but it ended up that we actually had a chance.         

Something my Dad and I share is the love of biking. During his service in Afghanistan, he wrote an article explaining how he rode his bike every day to work in the military base that was later published in the Bicycle Times magazine. When my Dad came back from Afghanistan, we started mountain biking together, and the difficult tracks we ran increased my passion for biking. When my Dad found out about the Urban Assault Ride coming to Richmond, we knew immediately that we were going to do it together. 

We started biking together even more to train for the bike race, and got our bikes all fixed up for the race. Soon, the race was coming up just around the corner. We were all pumped, and extremely excited. The morning came, and we got up early, and headed downtown to the meeting/starting area. Eagerness was in the air that entire time we were down there, up until the starting time. 

As soon as the sound went off, we raced to our bicycles. I was riding a GT mountain bike, and my Dad was riding a Canondale mountain bike. We were racing and pedaling like crazy, and we were bursting with thrill in the moments that our adrenaline took over. At the first stop it took us a while, but we made it through, and continued to follow our route. We came through the next few stops, including the mystery stop and the one at the YMCA where we jumped in the pool. 

We were having such a great time, and were really impressed with ourselves to find that we actually finished the race pretty early. As we waited for all of the other contestants, we ate lunch, and tried the fun little mini games that were set up. After everyone was back, the award “ceremony” began. We ended up winning second place, and then the fun began, with relay races and dancing contests. In the end, the Urban Assault Bike race was something extremely fun and exciting that my Dad and I loved doing together.