Rode with the Texas Wheels Gods again last night in what were probably optimal conditions for a bent to smoke a pack of seriously fast roadies.  High wind on the flats for the first 5 miles, and sheltered on the gigantic starter hills and the rolling hills afterwards.
 
The paceline was only 15-18 on the flats, presumably fighting the wind.  I never felt it as I was sheltered with one rider in front and one to the left.  I think I only had to pedal 3 revolutions ever 20 seconds to maintain the pace.  Next time the line is like that I may just get out in front and dust them, but my plan this time was to stay in the middle and break up some of the benefit of a paceline.  
 
When we hit the hills I stayed right on the wheels of the pack, but at the back.  When we hit Texas Plume - which I can't believe is only 200 feet of climbing in 1.4 miles - even if it is 12% in places - I got dropped by the pack after a few minutes.  Then ahead another roadie got dropped and I passed him easily.  Then Mark Metcalf passes me - he apparently likes to let the pack go and then race to catch up with them.
 
I keep Mark in my sights going into the rolling hills section.  He catches up to another roadie who was dropped and who sucks Mark's wheel.  As I catch up to them I can see the paceline ahead - I'm going to catch them!  Mark's wheel-sucking friend moves out in the lane to block me every time I try to pass, but that doesn't keep me long.  Mark however, bumps up a gear every time I get within 5 feet of him.  Pretty soon we're eating up the road, but I just can't quite catch him.  Just as I finally get him again my phone rings - usually I ignore it but it goes off 3 times in rapid succession so I know it's the wife and figure it MUST be an emergency.  So I pull over.  When I do, Bud flies by - I thought we had dropped him way back but he'd been quietly eating up the distance and was about to reel us all in.
 
So, I never saw Bud, Mark, or the Paceline again, but in spite of the windy conditions I managed to better my average on the route to 17.7.   Until I drop 10 pounds, I think I'm about as fast as I'm going to get on the P-38.  My legs are *toast* today.  I'm going to eat nothing but carbs all day.
 
Bud, how'd you finish?  You ever catch the paceline?  How do the legs feel today after the new Q-ring?

Even with some braking, I was doing 40 mph down Texas Plume Road, and with the tailwind, did 23-24 mph or more almost all the way down Lake Ridge, but I still didn't catch anyone. I usually catch everyone, given that much downhill distance, but not this time. Those are some fast folks.
 
My legs feel fine today, but they probably wouldn't be much good for pedaling. That q-ring really feels great when you are spinning with a good cadence, but I couldn't tell that it helped all that much climbing. I need more gears on my cassette. My 11-34 cassette came in last night, but it's not what I ordered, so I haven't installed it.
 
My average heart rate for the ride was 155. That's down from 161 last Thursday. I won't make the mistake of eating before this ride again, though. After the Texas Plume climb, I felt I was in enough danger of tossing my cookies, that I intentionally kept my heart rate more reasonable after that. That's probably why it took me so long to catch anyone (I stopped the first mile to stop my computer magnet from hitting the sensor - this is NOT a good crowd to give a head start), but it's also why I didn't overly fatigue myself.  
 
200 feet is a considerable climb for us non-mountain dweller types. Look at the Beauty and Beast elevation chart - the Beast is only slightly more (unless you add all the short climbs leading up to it). My gps showed 1184 feet of climbing. That's not bad for a 32 mile weekday ride here in the flatlands, and my 18.4 mph average yesterday was better than I would have expected for that much climbing.

Quote from aikigreg on Apr 13^th, 2007, 5:31pm:

 
Good observation. If we do end up deciding to do the TTT, getting friendly with this route would be some great training for it. Like this route, the biggest climbing on the TTT course is the first half of the route (Scroll down to the bottom of that page to see the elevation graph). Here's the corresponding elevation graph for the Texas Wheels ride, taken from my gps.