Strava: http://app.strava.com/rides/21925746
Attendees: Galen and Shannon
I think the title of this blog is fitting given the objective for this morning's trainer (at least that's what I indicated the night before) was for Galen to drop me (playing spud boy wheelsucker). If I was able to stay on for the length of the ride, I'd try to do the same as we go up California. Of course, once I found out Jeremy, Vince and Shannon were coming out, I had second thoughts (i.e. doubt), but I thought I'd change up our training a little to keep it interesting. We have had rides where we chase the rabbit, so this was something new and different to try. Unfortunately (fortunately for me), Vince didn't make it out, and Jeremy opted to rest to ride tomorrow instead (getting a #5 reference from Galen as a result...haha). That still left me having to keep up with Galen and Shannon, so this was definitely going to not be a small feat.
The weather was pretty cool starting off and remained rather pleasant throughout, but there was one pocket of warm air we hit on Shady that instantly fogged up my glasses. Either that or Galen or Shannon squeezed out a warm one.
Now starting off, I like to warm up, but I think the two guys knew this and seemed to immediately amp up the pace early on. However, it was one of those days where miraculously, I didn't seem to have too much trouble getting oxygen in, but I wouldn't let the two guys know or they may actually force me to work and bypass what I originally set as the objective. What fun would that be?
Both guys seemed to be crushing it all the way up through Shady and over to Laguna Canyon. I stayed low and hung on letting them rotate in front of me always trying to stay prepared for a coordinated attack. They could both work together to do so, or one can conspire to help the other break away. In any case, I was going to be ready.
Once on the 133, Galen launched an assault on the climb and started to gap the both of us where in my mind, I had to respond or be dropped. I started to pass Shannon, who I called out to latch on, and then started making my way off the seat to Galen who was just throwing down some power. As I started making my way toward him, he looked back and seemed to have decided to wait. Cool for me.
After regrouping past the crest and heading down the other side, I decided I would take some chances and take some pulls here and there but not so often or so long where I wouldn't be able to respond to their combined coordinated power. If you think this was a rule #5 violation, you try riding with these guys. HA.
On the bottom of the 133 on the little sprinter hill that leads to PCH, Galen decided to sprint from the bottom. Having saved it, I responded with a sprint of my own and somewhat caught him off guard as I made my way past him before the 2nd stop sign. Of course, doing so blew me the hell up but I wasn't about to lead on that it was a good time to attack. Instead, I just latched back on once both guys passed me and rode it out behind them through most of the rollers as we made our way toward NPC. After we had passed one guy on a TT bike, I thought I could help out and keep the gap away from him and pushed the pace from the front a little as we were climbing the last hill before NPC.
I also ended up taking the first pull after the light on NPC as a token of sportsmanship (haha) but the boys took over through CDM and most of the way after McArthur. I did take the last pull that led us to Jamboree, but wondered if that was a mistake as we headed over to Back Bay. Fortunately, we caught a light on the left turn to Back Bay drive and this allowed me some time to recover.
Back Bay was as you would expect...nutty. I did get in the rotation more and took some pulls trying to keep our pace up along with the others since I figured I've saved enough where I thought it would be more difficult to drop me through here. However, everytime they passed me, I felt like I had to sprint just to latch back on. I was getting scared.
When we reached the end of Back Bay though, I was able to push up to the front on the final hill just before jumping onto the sidewalk. I stayed up front for a while, but as we made the left at the corner of Jamboree, I was spooked by a rider that was coming from the opposite direction and was relegated to the back. Shannon took the front and led us to the bridge, and Galen decided to open it up there and blaze the path to California. I just ducked in real low and sat behind him holding on, but near the end, I rolled by and told him how impressive that pull was.
Now once the light turned green to cross and head up California, I'm not sure if the guys remembered the premise I set earlier, but I didn't take any chances. I just stood up and took off up the hill and regularly peaking over my shoulder to make sure they weren't coming after me. Neither had latched on, so maybe they just didn't know. Either that or they just didn't care. HA HA. In any case, I was totally worked by the time I got to the light on Bison.
We'll have to try this out again with more people next time. I say this now because it's fun to stay in the back for a good portion of the ride. Maybe the next time, I won't even have to pull. Oh yeah. The only thing is we definitely had enough to be able to beat our last time out on this route, but with me not contributing as much, it didn't work out to where we beat our last time. I'm sure this will not be the case in our next outing.
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