Quote from aikigreg on Jun 2nd, 2009, 5:02pm:Uh-oh, Paul's going to "do the demo" on the roadies again....
LOL... no, not quite... I was disappointed to not have any fellow 'benters along, but I did know a couple of the other participants through other club rides -- but beyond them, I basically knew no one... I didn't take the camera along, figuring I might need to keep both hands on the grips for a new ride group. I knew better than to go out with the "A" group, especially on the SXP, so I settled into the middle of the "B" group once the "C"s fell off the back by the time we climbed Mount Richardson (Collins over 75).
From that point, I mostly hung out towards the back, gauging the ride... they held a pretty constant 20 to 25 mph pace, occasionally ramping up to 30, which I was a bit surprised at... and most were obviously surprised that I was keeping up! Going up Los Rios, the group was very good at hitting about 30 on the downhill approaching that first big hill, and everybody went up it at pretty good speed -- I only passed a half dozen or so (hearing, "
You're killing me, dude...") on the way up it. The next big downhill and big climb that came a couple miles up, just past Parker (?), for some reason the group leaders slowed down to ~20 -- so I hit the gas, and passed the entire gang, giving a smiling comment to the leaders as I passed them that "I need a head start up this"... and was able to hold them off all the way to the top, getting a "Niiiice!!!" from a couple of the leaders.
I continued to hang with the main group for several more miles at 20-25, until we hit the last section of southbound Allen Heights at about the 25 mile mark, into the wind. Somehow, the leaders were still holding 22+ into it, and I was starting to run out of gas for the slight climbs, slowly dropping off the back. I caught several people as we got to 544, and left them behind up that climb, then I took Brand Road as a shortcut instead of going to Murphy, back down to Renner. By that time, I was probably about 3/4 mile behind the main group, fully dropped. However, the Brand shortcut put me back ahead of them...
About three miles across Renner, past NorthStar, the main group that had gone down Murphy Road caught me, and I didn't have the gas to keep up, as they were treating Renner as a "sprint zone"... And since I had parked at Renner and 190 and ridden to the ride start, I was pretty much done, getting 36 total miles in, with an overall average of 19... which means the main ride average was probably over 20.
Overall it was an excellent, hard ride, perhaps the hardest 30 continuous miles I've done in several months... a good demonstration of the fact that I've got less than half my typical mileage in so far this year. HOWEVER, if I had been on the XStream instead of the SXP, hanging with the group all the way would not have been a problem. [There was no squirrelliness or crashes tonight, by the way, and of the ~40 that started the ride together, there were maybe 15 in the "main" group towards the end.]
Shellene and Bryan, if you're hanging with this group all the way on your Corsas, you have both come a LONG way towards getting your " 'bent legs" in a short time...!!!!!
Shall we get a group together for next Tuesday?