Well, Brad and I basically went out there to, as Rowdy Roddy Piper famously said in the classic film, "They Live"...
Oh, I can't type it here, you'll just have to watch the clip:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=peZuXrxGP3M And we were also all out of bubble gum...
I was on the XS, and Brad was on his Strada. My two prior best times with the mini-faired SXP last year for the 7.6 mile loop had been 19 min 50 sec (23 mph) and 19 min 30 sec (23.4 mph).
Brad and I were the last two to roll, he starting one minute before me. By the time we finished, we had both passed two other riders, and I could see Brad ahead of me over the last couple of miles.
Our finishing times were "officially" 18 minutes (25.3 mph) for Brad, and 17 min 33 sec (26 mph) for me -- two whole minutes faster than my prior best
. Nobody else was anywhere near under 20 minutes, to my knowledge.
HOWEVER, there may have been a one minute error in timing totals -- Brad's personal timer said 19 minutes, and I have a hard time believing that I could have had a 3mph faster average, midracer or no midracer -- especially after only having ridden it for a whopping 30 minutes the night before! Even so, if my time was 18:33, that's still a signficant decrease in time considering my newness to the "reclined" pedaling position. It's also only about 15 seconds higher than the club course record...
Then, immediately after finishing, both my calves cramped up.... owwwwwwwwwwwwwww.....
Well done, Brad!!!
Yeah, baby...