For this morning's ride, it was Jeremy, Gary and me where Jeremy joked as we started that no one had anything to prove since Galen (who was in the gym) wasn't coming with us. Yet, that didn't change the agenda of the ride one bit. With a moderate pace in the beginning (yet still taxing for some reason), the pace started to pick up once we crossed Bonita Canyon heading toward Shady. The three of us actually worked pretty well together and were taking turns up front accordingly.
After the 2nd bridge on Shady, however, Jeremy picked it up a little and gapped where I thought it was a good time to bring up the ol' heart rate to a respectable level and chase him down. I was able to crest ahead of him at the top, but he was on me like white on rice.
We were all together again as we were on Quail Hill and Gary was pushing the pace again as we headed on it. Actually, both he and Jeremy kept doing so all the way up the 133 and down the other side. Gary would get up front on some of the inclines and just start killing it where I could not even really latch on to his wheel. Nice power, Gary!
After some rotations and with Gary being the last up front as we headed toward Laguna Beach, I decided to kick it up a notch and sprint up the hill that leads to PCH. That snapped both of the guys off, but Jeremy made his way back up to me and we kept going on PCH sans Gary.
Jeremy was leading on PCH for a while as I recovered from my sprint, but I took the front just as we were coming across two other guys who were climbing up one of the rollers ahead of us. I did gap Jeremy at this point, but he was in non-drop mode and again made his way back to me. Even more impressive was that he was also pulling up to the front and even at times surging ahead of me where it seemed he had intentions of dropping me. Nice!
When we got to NPC, Jeremy was ahead and had gotten a pretty good gap on me as I was trying to find a good tempo to climb up it off the seat. I think I only made it half way up off the seat, but I was barely able to make any ground on Jeremy. I sat my fat ass down finally and started spinning up where it took almost to the 2nd Pelican to finally make my way past Jeremy. I gapped him as I made it to the top but it wasn't long again before he was back on my wheel and we were heading down NPC together.
While we were at the bottom waiting at the light to go to Bonita Canyon, we saw that Gary wasn't too far behind us. As the light turned green, he had just gotten to the intersection so we were all together once again. I led the initial pull on here but without fail, Gary once again was charging up the first rise after the 73 underpass requiring a sprint just to get on his wheel.
We opted to go on Jamboree to blow it out hoping to get a decent run with Gary offering a lead out, but a car pretty much was parked on the corner of Jamboree and Ford where we had almost no momentum once we started up the hill. This didn't stop Gary from standing up and just going for it, so I figured I'd do the same. Man, Gary was hard to reel in almost taking the whole hill before being able to get up to him and ultimately pass him. It was cool to here him let out a big sigh as he popped after trying to keep up beside me. :)
We were still in BAM mode at the light on McArthur, so Gary sprinted away at the light and I chased after him but he was moving at a pretty good clip. I was glad he got caught at the first light on the 73, and as I passed before the 2nd light, I was wondering if he or Jeremy were still up for a sprint. I tested it out and started to sprint away only to look behind me and see that they weren't following. Good. I was cooked.
Great training ride, gents! Strong showing by both Jeremy and Gary for sure.
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