Gary and I at Como Street

Strava:  http://app.strava.com/rides/5094102

Only Gary and I went out this morning for the Como ride and while short, it was still a great workout.  I suppose the time change deterred a lot of people from coming out this morning since the size of the peloton seemed less than normal.  Vin did come out as well, but he did the long route and we never saw him.

The pace also seemed fairly tame in the beginning and never really picked up too much until we got to El Toro.  This worked to my advantage since I was tired from my 60 miler yesterday, and further I forgot to close my saddle bag where I had to stop on Jeffrey just to get it zipped up again.  Gary, the team player, pulled out of the peloton as well when he saw me drop off, and together we were able to make our way back up to the group a few blocks later on Irvine Blvd.

As I indicated, the pace up El Toro did get pretty high.  I had wanted to sit in the back as much as possible today but when people started to pop off, I had to close the gap back up towing some other guys with me just to get back to the group.  One guy did thank me for the pull...cool.

The split up on Santa Margarita didn't seem to have too many people doing the long route today, so there was still a good sized group doing the short one.  Rather than pushing up front for better positioning before Cooks, I decided not to move up until the hill already started.  I started making my way past people but it was hard being there were so many that I was on the road most of the time.  After a while, I was no longer gaining on the front group and ended up just watching them go over the 2nd crest.  I ended up cresting after them all by myself, but then got picked up by a chase group with Gary in it.  Nice!

The guy on the Aragon bike, who is now on a Scott CR1 since he crashed on his Aragon, was also in this pack, and did some of his really strong pulls.  The pace was actually pretty fast with several people also being in the group, although the paceline was not very organized and with some guys not getting up front right away.  We did see the front group ahead at one point by the lake, but they got away before we could get to them by Dump.  Gary had taken a pull or two in the paceline, but I didn't see him after a while.

On Dump, I was at the back after taking a few pulls, even with some shortened rotations, so I decided to try and make some ground up toward the front again since some of the guys started popping off.  I actually ended up pulling ahead of everyone and even creating a gap, but after the slight bend to the right, 3 guys eventually passed me.  I was able to respond and pull one of them back before the top, but the other 2 (including the Aragon guy) got away.  I led the initial charge down the hill to try and catch them, and then others came around behind me and started to help.  We actually gained on them a lot and I took the last pull to try and close it, but we were coming up on Jamboree where it was good enough just to be able to catch them at the light.

On Jamboree, we started climbing up the hill where I wasn't eager for a repeat pass at the end, so I sat in the back for a while.  Near the top, I made my way to the front and began the charge down the hill on the other side.  At this point, we had snapped off some of the other guys where there were only 5 of us left as we made our way to Portola.  I was trying to see if anyone was going for a sprint at some point after, and no one really seemed like they were.  Mr.  Aragon rider had pulled away from the 3 guys, so I went around them and made my way up to him.  I know he had some mad power, but rather than sprinting against him from one of the lights, we just ended up talking the rest of the way back.

21.1 mph average, which isn't really bad considering it was rather slow on Irvine Blvd.  Good enough for some training.  Gary rolled in shortly after and had gotten a good workout as well...enough to skip his post canyon run.  He had matched some of his 2nd  best times to get some medals whereas I had gotten zip on Strava.  Oh well...we'll just have to see what we see for next week's race.