My GPS battery died 5 miles in so here's Shannon's: http://connect.garmin.com/activity/69940397
Nice to have 11 guys come out today for this ride. We opted to skip Summit and Ridge Park, but the ride was pretty painful nonetheless. I knew Vince was going to make me work to make up for Tuesday and this was obvious when getting on East Peltason, he had me close the gap after I actually slowed down on the turn to not hit pedestrian (and David who yielded as well) crossing the street.
I think for the most part, the pace going out to Bonita Canyon wasn't too bad. Gary and Mike did a good job keeping everyone together. Plus, Gary was racing this weekend, so it was perfect.
Once we got on NPC, the pace picked up a bit. I don't remember who was up front initially, but Shannon started passing everyone, including a guy in a Bike Religion (BR) kit, with Vince and I in tow. I guess BR guy jumped on our draft after as he was behind me for as long as I could hold onto Shannon and Vince's pace. I ended up falling off where the BR guy passed and rode up with Shannon and Vince. Adrian caught me after some time after he offramp and rode with me for a bit. As expected, he turned it on after with the intent to drop and sure enough...I dropped. Good job.
At the top, we were expecting to regroup but that shifted over to the top of Pelican before the downhill. When Eddie, Adrian and I approached, we were off with Adrian leading the charge. We'll have to actually have a real re-group point next time, but not too sure I'd hold my breath for that.
Since I love the section after the DH, I charged the uphill and Vince and Shannon jumped on. Near the bottom, Vince took over and was blasting down the rest of NPC and the beginning of PCH. It took some time to get into his draft, but Shannon and I got on. Shannon then took over and brought it up another 5 mph faster and held it.
At Poppy, Eddie and Adrian caught up and Vince led us through the residential area in CDM. All I can say is even through here, there was very little let up.
Once back on PCH, I decided I better get front again and started that out at a pretty good pace (to avoid getting bitched at again). I don't remember who took over after, but I almost got dropped after Jamboree where I was just outside the draft trying not to let the others get away. Thankfully, I caught them on the right turn to Bayside.
There was no let up on the bike trail, and Shannon pulled like mad behind the trailer park. We all managed to stay together despite. Adrian started up the BB run followed by Eddie, who led up to just before San Joaquin. When Vince got up front, I thought about going for the sprint, but decided it would be better just to try and stay with the group. I guess others thought the same thing.
I was getting ready to relieve Vince after when Shannon came around on the left side. I jumped on and everyone one else got on behind me. Shannon's pull was pretty intense and he again held a pretty high watt pace. When he slowed down a little, I took over and just tried to keep the pace in the same area (bad idea). After a while, I heard Shannon yell out to Adrian to get up front and probably about 10 minutes after (just kidding) he finally did.
Oh but when Adrian did, he lit it up pretty good and I was not able to jump on the draft as the group passed me. I was sprinting my ass off trying to catch them, but the gap persisted. When I saw Adrian roll out and Vince take over, I was cooked. Shannon, Vince and Adrian took off from there dropping Eddie as well and never seemed to slow down. They were on turning onto Jamboree already by the time Eddie and I hit the top of BB. We didn't see them after that.
Eddie and I rode together to CA. On CA, Eddie started off with a good pace (could it be from sitting in my draft for the last 5 minutes...HA HA). After the first light, I kicked the pace up a little and he wasn't able to jump on. When I got to Bison at a red light, I didn't think the light would turn green but Eddie timed it perfectly where he was already in sprint mode just as it turned. I tried to chase him down before the gate, but I wasn't able to catch him (I won't mention the car between us though as the reason...nope...I won't mention it at all).
Chalk up another good workout for the team. I hope the others had a good one as well. Okay, rain, we're ready for you.
Nice riding today Rich. You had some huge pulls! It was good to see Eddie up front too. Unfortunate that we got separated from the rest of the group.
ReplyDeleteAdrian had the high speed on BB topping out at 32mph, Vince and I rallied but couldn't ge there on our turn. Good job.
Who were the others that came out today?
Vince ended up taking NPC despite some trading with the UCI guy that paced us. He was pretty happy just to have the tow I think.
Sorry about the regroup, I figured Pelican was as good as NPC.
-Shannon.
I lost touch with the group starting out on NPC, but Mark and I were able to catch up to Hiroshi at the top who had also fallen back. We headed down Pelican together and then got back on NPC. When we did, we saw Mike coming down NPC.
ReplyDeleteWe just missed catching the group turning onto Poppy and had to wait out the light. By that time we knew there was no hope of catching the lead group. We cruised the rest of the ride with Mike yelling out commands to Mark to get up front :)
It was not much different in our group. Except I tried a riding whip to motivate Mr Guns. And, when that didn't work, my handy cattle prod. No fine orchestration and conductor's rods today!
ReplyDeleteShannon, the 11 guys that came out today including you were Vince, Gary, Adrian, Eddie, Hiroshi, Marc, Seon, Mike Z, David and me. Good turn out.
ReplyDelete