Yesterday was a long one at work which had me a little drained and then I got a late start on my warmup/preride for the group ride with only 30 minutes of getting the legs going. Usually I get in about 60 minutes or so that I can get the heart and legs in tune with each other. 30 minutes would have to do. I was pleasently surprised to see
Brent coming out to join in the fun as well as Peter Leugers, one of the bicycle product reps that rolls down from the Twin Cities and one of the coolest reps I know. It's always great to see these guys make it out on the group rides and mingle with the locals a bit.
We had a fairly strong wind out of the NW so the group decided to head towards Finchford and then on to Janesville before sprinting back to Waterloo. We started out at a very controlled pace of around 22 mph or so and I took the opportunity to launch off the front for a while, mostly to finish getting my heart going like I said before. The group never really reacted which was good since it gave me just enough to make me feel much better. After about 1.5 miles the group came up on my left being lead by J. Fry and he still had the other 9 riders in tow so I hopped on the back and chilled for a while slowly moving forward as riders peeled off the front. When I was sitting in fourth wheel, I saw Doug launch himself off the front so I chased and went with him and we pulled a pretty decent gap on the group, holding them off until we made the left turn to head West towards Finchford. We sat up and waited for a few riders to latch back on and then the pace started creeping back up as Bullerman took the front.J. Fry was soon going on a flyer with Doug but they were pulled back pretty quick as the group of about seven headed through Finchford towards 3-Tier Hill. J. Fry and Doug went off the front after the second tier with Peter and Rob Shirk right behind them and myself in no-mans land giving chase. We regrouped for a very short period pf time before it broke apart again and stayed that way for about five miles or so until we turned North and headed for Janesville.
Everyone took a little breather through Janesville and then it was back on for the final 13 or so miles back to Waterloo. The group stretched out and then snapped with Craig and J, Fry off the front followed by Peter and Rob and then myself. I kept getting close to Rob and then he would pull away again so I sat up just a little bit and hokked up with Doug. The two of us then motored out way back through almost everyone (some riders had bipassed Janesville and we were catching them too) catching and passing Peter, Jeff Smith, and a couple others and picking up Rob. We were cruising along at around 29-30 mph and should have been able to catch J. Fry and Craig had it not been for getting around a farm tractor and some oncoming traffic that held us up just a bit. Even with the delay we were pretty close. I would have been able to give Doug the perfect leadout to catch Fry too, dang.
I escorted Peter back to Bike Tech to get to his car and then made my way for home and some food, I was starving.
All in all it was a fantastic ride, probably the best so far this season. I was feeling really good and I am definitely firing on all cylinders. Now I should be able to start working on the details a bit more such as sprint intervals and hill repeats.
Read the complete post at http://carlosdajackal.blogspot.com/2008/05/time-to-push-it.html