Vince Puke Route Re-visited

Garmin stats:  http://connect.garmin.com/activity/74544139

Per PV's suggestion, we hit the hills today and opted to do Vince's puke route which has ~2500 ft of elevation gain.  That's a lot to do for a lunch ride!

12 of us out there all together, so a good showing of participants despite the expected pain fest.  Marc, one of the guys who likes to climb, didn't show up however because the weather was just too cold.  Someone bring the guy a scarf and earmuffs for Thursday's ride.

I guess since Gary wasn't here today I'd go ahead and lead the guys out through Anteater.  Actually, I ended up leaving first waiting for someone to pass, but no one ever did until we got there.  Ha ha.  Thanks for taking over, Todd!

On NPC, 3 of our strongest climbers decided they wanted a head start (wtf)...names withheld to protect the not-so-innocent.   Hmmm...doesn't it usually work the other way?   When the rest of us started the hill, it looked like Hiroshi, Mike Z. and Adrian had a pretty good pace but being on Shannon's wheel, we made our way past them...until he dropped me to catch up to the others.  Mitchell had been doing well going up the hill as well, and I spent some time behind him before Shannon passed.

Adrian and Eddie had caught up to me at the top and the 4 guys ahead weren't too far ahead but caught the light and went up Ridge Park first.  After waiting a while, we opted to take the crosswalk to start the climb with Adrian jumping ahead along with Eddie.  I managed to pass these guys but Adrian ended up right behind me after the turn to Vista, so he led the charge down the hill.

On NPC, I took over for a bit, but he jumped ahead again on the down hill.  On Pelican, I jumped ahead on the first hill and just wanted to make it interesting for Vince, Todd, and Shannon who I knew would eventually work their way to catch me. 

They saw me at the top of Pelican and as I crossed NPC, and Shannon eventually chased me down and caught me at the extra credit turn around point.  Todd and Vince weren't too far behind.  On the way down, Shannon kept going and eventually reeled in Jaffe, Seon, Eddie and Mitchell by the time they got to the bottom of NPC.  Todd had passed me after the crest of Ridge Park and led down Ridge Park and the start of the NPC descent.  He and I then worked together to reel in Jaffe and Seon and eventually run into the others by the time we got to the light to go on Anteater.  Vince came up as well and caught us there.

The pace was unrelenting even through the campus with Shannon and Todd keeping us all honest and Vince taking over at E. Peltason.  We even charged up the hill on Health Sciences but had to yield at the top where Eddie went through and sprinted to the gate for the win.  Nice.

Great training again today, guys.  Definitely made up for the lack of mileage (especially vertical mileage) over the weekend.  In all honesty, today's ride was more taxing than the race last Saturday.  See you guys Thursday (weather-permitting).