This morning, I got up early (3:20 am) so I can get ready for this hilly ride with Shannon. I picked up Shannon and we made it out to Pasadena with plenty of time to pick up our packets. We parked at the designated parking for the event 2-3 blocks away, and conveniently, there was a gas station nearby where we took a bio break in lieu of the 4-5 porta-potties at the start point.
We lined up just before 7 a.m. and was somewhere mid-pack when they let us all go for an actual mass start ride…something we haven't seen in a while. It came with a full police escort, so we were able to blow through a bunch of lights and stop signs up until we were heading up the mountains. We were kind of in the middle, or so i thought, when we first started but it looked like there were a whole bunch of riders ahead of us. I was taking it easy thinking we were going to take it easy until the KOM section. We did start falling behind a bit, so Shannon pushed ahead and started to work to close the gap. I made some effort to stay with him, but that didn't last once we started climbing. I could see him ahead of me, but I wanted to save it since I knew it would be hot and remembered how bad it got for us at L'Etape.
I ended up getting together with about 4-5 guys as we headed up, and Shannon joined us after waiting a little just after one of the SAGs. I was content to stay in this group as was Shannon, so we did stay in the line for a bit that had grown to about 7-8 riders. I did get a little board after a while, and decided to push up and bring the pace up a little but I guess that caused some of the guys to drop off according to Shannon. Oops.
Shannon and I continued in this group, which eventually thinned out to about 4 of us after one of the descents. A couple of guys had caught up, but it ended up being just the two of us after one of the turns (more on this later). Shannon had pushed ahead of me and I was content just to keep him in sight. When we got to the KOM section, Shannon had taken a BIO break, so I thought it was a good idea and did the same.
A few guys had passed while we did this, and once we started again, Shannon had indicted he wasn't really going to go for this KOM. We still rolled up to 2 or 3 of them, and while we were riding, one of the riders pointed out that one of the riders was the guest rider of the event: Francesco Moser - winner of the 1984 Giro d'Italia. I remember the announcer talking about him in the beginning and saying how he wondered if anyone was going to be able to keep up with him. Well, here was our chance to ride with a legend.
Shannon was with us for a while but because he was not quite happy with the aroma he smelled in the presence of other riders, he broke away leaving 4 of us. There was one rider that appeared to be riding with Francesco, but he ended up popping off as did the other rider leaving it just us two. Wow, I get to ride with Francesco during the KOM section. How cool is that? I was sure he was going to drop me at one point despite being older, but curiously, he wasn't breaking me off on the hills as I expected. I would ride his wheel as he would mine after I would pass him, and on the last hill 1K away from the finish, he did seem to pick it up a little. However, I stayed on and about 100 yards from the finish, I ended up cranking it up a notch while in front and I could see that he had dropped off my rear wheel where I got to the timing mat a few seconds ahead of him. I tried to thank him afterward, but I don't think he spoke any english. He did shake my hand though.
We rolled on to the SAG station where Shannon was waiting, and after refilling the bottles in preparation for a lot more riding, we were off as was Francesco. He was leading us down in the beginning while we rode behind him, but I decided to push forward since we were going downhill. Both of them followed, and Francesco ended up getting beside me on one of the turns as we were descending. Shannon then pushed ahead and Francesco followed him as the hill flattened out, but I decided to drop off thinking we still have a bunch of climbing to do.
I did end up descending on my own, and I really wish I had my GoPro since that was a fun descent too. The turns were all swooping and you never really had to brake even at speeds. I was able to get past a couple guys on the way down, and just as I was nearing the bottom, I could see Shannon red's jersey where I was able to ride up to him just as we made a turn towards a residential area for another SAG stop. He indicated he was working hard down the hill to drop Francesco, and sure enough, he did. Francesco, however, impressed him with his descent speed and how he's able to ride down the hill with one of him hands behind him on the seat (more aerodynamic?).
At the SAG, we were the only ones there and I thought we just got welll ahead of everyone. To my surprise, we found out we actually missed one of the turns in the route and ended based on a missing arrow. Neither of us saw the turn, but after Shannon looked up the route slip, that's exactly what happened. We were both a little bummed, but we didn't see any point in going back up again just to do the segment we missed. That would have added a significant amount to our route, and we figured we'll just have to come back and do this route again.
As we started to ride back, we went back through the residential area that we had ridden through. At all the stop signs that we had ridden through, there were signs that we had to come to a complete stop and it turned out with good reason. There was a police car sitting just around the corner of each of them (I'd say about 8 or so). We even saw how one of the riders had gotten pulled over and was being ticketed as we passed. I thought the whole thing was pretty shady, so this was one of the things I really did NOT like about this ride.
We made it back pretty early and finished doing only 66 miles with over 6000 ft of climbing. Shannon, good job out there. Although we didn't get to do the whole route, it was just cool to hang with Shannon again both during and after the ride. Riding with Francesco was fun too! Cheers!
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