Lunch Ride - Turtle Ring Route with Strava Incentive

Strava:  http://app.strava.com/rides/7761293


Okay, so I missed yesterday's ride and needed to find a way to give people the incentive to come out today given Wednesday rides are not the norm.  The sell was if we can attack certain Strava segments and get KOMs, one may be entitled to receive a tasty 6 pack beverage for the "worthiest" KOM.  Well, I got some people to come out (Jeremy, Vin, Mitchell, Jaffe, Hiroshi and Mike Z. - they all probabloy would have come out regardless) but none of us were successful in achieving a KOM.  HA HA.

My plan was to attack two segments in today's route:  "Shady Start" and "Ridgeline."  However, after stepping out of the gym and feeling the wind, I knew it would not be a good day to try them.  Despite this, I did so anyways.  HA HA.

Going out was really slow, and the pack let me lead them out to Bonita Canyon at my pace.  We tried to get a little organized for a run up Shady Start and even attempted to be rolling once the light turned green, but it didn't really work out too well.  Jeremy broke away early on, so I was in chase mode (almost sprint) to get up on his wheel.  However, by the time I caught up to him, I already had momentum where I opted to just pass him and try to hold onto my pace.  Vin came out of nowhere and passed me for a little bit, but he was tired from his effort to catch up so I was around him shortly after.  Now the funny thing is (which i probably shouldn't admit) is that I never really studied the segment.  It was over a mile long!  Again, I was in almost sprint mode from the very beginning, so at some point I popped like an old balloon and was barely going 17 mph...not exactly the right speed when I'm trying to achieve over a 25 mph average.  Looking at the comparison tab in Strava though, I was ahead of my PR run on it for the first half mile, but the wind beat me down pretty good after that making for almost a laughable attempt.  So it goes.

Jeremy, Vin and the others caught or passed me before we got on Sunnyhill, and the guys helped shield the wind on Turtle Rock subsequently...well, almost.  I was a little off the back still trying to recover.  When we went up the other side, Jeremy, Vin, Mitchell and Hiroshi had broken away, so although I wanted to save some for Ridgeline, I figured I'd have enough to pick it up a little here and passed Hiroshi with Jaffe in tow.  We didn't catch the 3 ahead of us until they were headed back onto Sunnyhill.

Going up Shady, Vin led the initial charge, but Jeremy had broken away where it got steep right after the first bridge.  Mitchell didn't seem interested in closing the gap, so I went ahead and did so just to keep my legs warm.  I tried to shake Mitchell off at the top to keep him honest, but he flipped that script and stuck to my rear the whole time.

When we made our way down, the guys regrouped and allowed me to sit in the back and prepare for the climb up Ridgeline.  Jeremy kept looking back to make sure I was okay...either that or he was thinking WTF?  Get up here and help.  HA HA.

Going up Ridgeline, Hiroshi broke away pretty early, as did Jeremy but Jeremy was looking back waiting for me to latch on.  Since there was a good sized gap, I was not about to blow myself up too early, but I had to work just to be able to catch both of them.  As on Shady, once I did, I didn't really spend any time behind them and went around to try to keep the pace up as I ascended.  Mitchell, my wingman, stayed behind me the whole time going up.  In this run, I was again ahead for a little bit early on, but fell off the pace after 2/5 of the way up.  That's a long hill too!

Mitchell came around and helped going down Turtle Rock, and after everyone caught us to go on Culver, everyone was doing their fair share of work going through Bonita Canyon.

When we got on Ford, I started to pull back a little while Mitchell, Jaffe and Hiroshi went ahead.  Vin and Jeremy stayed back with me and asked if I was going to try the Condo.  I told them I'd give it a run.  After rounding the corner, I took off and got past the three guys ahead of me in the first quarter of the hill.  I didn't have enough to contest the prior record because...well...I'm old and I'm slow.

After regrouping at the McArthur light, I stayed in the back to see what the plan was for a final sprint.  Hiroshi ended up breaking away early and Jaffe was in the chase group with Vin and I behind him.  Vin came around and reeled Hiroshi in and I stayed on his rear wheel as we passed him.  I wanted to sprint off the seat, but I had nothing left and I was just able to get beside Vin as we neared the corner to California.  Good enough.

That wind was pretty tough today, so this was actually a lot tougher than I expected.  Although not immediately visible, I did break some power records today holding 8.6 W/kg for a minute, 6.7 W/kg for 2, and 5.4 for 3 minutes.  It went south fast after that though. Now if only someone would explain to me what that means.

Thanks for the training, gents!