Attendees: Noah, Shannon, Galen, Todd, Jeremy and me
This is my 3rd time doing this ride, and it was nice to know that a few of our team members were coming out too. This was Galen and Jeremy's maiden voyage, but they climbed exceptionally despite this. More on this later.
Now before this ride, everyone was trying to establish how we, as a team, were going to do this ride. What we decided was to stop as little as possible and just get through the ride and be done with it. I thought we'd at least start together, take it easy, and then start attacking the hill once we got on the 330. However, once everyone got their bar code scanned at the start, they were off and running. Noah and I were the last ones to get scanned, and by the time we got to the stop sign to make the first left of the ride, the other guys were already off and away. Had it not been for a light that they got caught on, I don't think I'd ever have seen them on this ride. They were flying!
I'm a slow starter and have a hard time warming up, but I did my best to stay in the line for as long as possible. However, after a few miles of keeping the pace already working up a sweat even before we got to the climb (Noah confirming that they were pushing watts upwards of 340), I decided I wasn't having any of it. I waved Noah on who bravely proceeded to ride with the guys thinking that they're probably going lighten up at some point, but even to his amazement, they kept pushing even after starting on the 330. In the end, I'm not too sure who ended up riding together but from what I could gather, everyone was mostly on their own for the length of the ride.
I decided to SAG at Snow Valley and skip the first one since I only had one full water bottle full of electrolyte. I saw Pam there who confirmed that the others were between 5-15 minutes ahead of me in separate groups. As was the plan, I just filled the bottle and rolled out shortly after.
I made it to the SAG at the Lake and kept a pretty good pace sticking to my plan where I refilled again, and was off. I don't know how far the guys were ahead of me at that point, but I wasn't there that long either. I rolled on and about there was where I started to feel lonely because there was hardly anyone up there to ride with. I just went into TT mode at that point and decided all I wanted to do was get to the top of Onyx.
When I started up, I thought I'd just save my legs and not blow them up because I didn't want to stop very long at the top either. I spun up and was 6 minutes slower than last year, but my legs were not the worse for wear at the top. I just filled up my bottle, turned on my GoPro (footage to follow later), and I was off.
Going down the other side was fun, and I got to ride down the first part with someone I know from Strava (Scott) through a mutual friend. I didn't know it at the time, but I did recognize the jersey. We were separated at the climb, and I was on my own again.
I did eventually see a familiar black jersey ahead of me...it was Noah! I took the opportunity to actually be able to ride with someone at that point and do a little filming of him as well. When he went to take a bio break or fill up at the SAG, I went on my own and was pretty much all alone for the rest of the way back. I passed a couple guys on the way down, but no one willing to jump on and work with me.
At the finish, the other guys were already there drinking a beer at Shannon's truck where all I wanted was a Coke. Of course, Todd and Shannon come through for me and got me one. Jeremy had even gotten there ahead of me, so that was awesome for his first official century! Good job. The other guys crushed it as well finishing at least a half hour before me but spoke of mostly how they were mostly on their own as well. Considering I was actually back more than 30 minutes earlier than the prior years, it was a solid day of riding for sure.
Now it's always about the post ride festivities when it comes to these rides, but Noah in all his wisdom asked on the way home, "Why do we have to ride only to have beers together after when we're pretty much alone on the rides anyway?" This point stuck with me and reminded me of the times when we actually used to ride together for the length of the ride. We're going to have to get back to this mode at some point since it's weird to call it team rides when we're all just doing our own thing. We'll have to have more discussions about this offline I suppose.
Thanks to Pam for coming out and supporting the team and bringing some snacks after. We did end up getting food after a couple drinks, but the burger I had on my bun dropped where I went to retrieve another one. I didn't realize Noah would pick it up and make himself a double double. Here's proof:
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