Oh so smooth yet oh so painful. That pretty much sums up the group road ride last night.
It all started out with a nice 45 minute warmup to get the blood going. I've been having trouble getting warmed up properly lately and I really have no idea why. I've been trying a few new things that seem to be working out as far as getting ready the higher intensity rides but, I still need a bit more of something although I am not sure what. After I was feeling good, I met up with the rest of the group and we began our short little ride across town to get to Union Rd. where we decided to head towards Finchford into the wind. The pace picked up rather slowly but, eventually we were cruising along in the mid to high 20s while getting the echelon riding down to a point. Everone seemed to be taking nice strong pulls and with nine riders, we had plenty of time to rest in between. A nine rider group provides quite a bit of wind break for recovery and it looked like everyone was taking advantage of it quite nicely.
We were only a few short miles into our Northern leg when we had what has been becoming the norm lately happen again. Some idiot in his four-wheeled coffin goes flying by us and lays on the horn as he does it. Normally we all just wave and continue on our merry way but, for some reason last night it scared the crap out of me. I'm pretty sure that my heart rate peaked at that time and my blood pressure was darn near maxed out. I thought that I may have even run Bullerman off the road with me twitch but, he said he was fine. We all blew it off and proceeded on towards the left turn to Finchford.
Right after we made the turn to the West and crested teh small hill, the group got right back to business with one small problem. We were rotating through the group away from the wind which didn't leave a very good draft. Thankfully
Striker corrected that as he did his pull and then peeled off to right. As we came to the final curve before Finchford, we started heading North again and like clockwork the rotation shifted back over. It was a beautiful thing to see and actually made me smile. There was no slowing through Finshford and the group was quickly upon Three-Tier hill, which is my Achilles heel this year. I made sure to stay tucked in and spinning and I actually was able to hang on all the way over the top. Woohoo!!!! Turning right at the bottom of the hill and heading South to C57 and then East to Center St. was a at a pretty good clip between 26-32 mph and I stayed with the leaders until the sprint came up and then I sat up to conserve a bit for later.
Then it was North to Janesville, cooled off a bit through town, and right back to business heading East on C50. We had a nice pace going and as we crested the final hill before the next sprint I fully anticipated the J. Fry/Kisch attack at the top. I decided to go a little out of my norm and I asked Doug, who was in my draft, if he was ready. A positive reply sent me off the front with Doug and Striker in tow. I peeled off to launch Doug and away he went for the sprint. Iguess everyone's right, I do make a good draft. ;-)
The return trip home heading South on Wagner Rd. was fantastic. J. Fry,
Striker, and Kisch got off the front a little bit as Bullerman, Doug, Robert, and myself gave chase. Doug and I ended up riding away from the other two and were actually making good time on the lead three. I think that Doug was feeling it just a bit from the last sprint and his pulls started to slow just a bit but we wee still in the low 30s so no big deal. Once they dropped to the high 20s, I tried to take a few longer pulls to give him some more time to rest but, the damage was done and he popped. I continued on trying to catch the three but eventually I too couldn't bridge so I sat up and waited for Bullerman, Robert, and Doug to jump back in with them for the final few miles to Waterloo.
The ride itself felt great and it is always satisfying to see everyone working so well together. Hopefully it works like that this weekend in
Clear Lake too, for those of us that are going.
The
2008 Tour de France has been fantastic to watch so far this year. Great attacks at the finish line, breaks that stay away for the entire day, three yellow jersey wearers in the first week, very close competition, and just plain fun to watch. Can't wait for the mountain stages to start.
Read the complete post at http://carlosdajackal.blogspot.com/2008/07/raising-blood-pressure.html