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.