Lunch Ride - The "Snooze You Lose" Trainer

Strava:  http://app.strava.com/activities/39087269

Attendees:  Todd, Vince, Adrian, Vin, Jeremy (welcome back!), Mitchell, Jaffe, Peter and one other gent


As a previous underwriter for an insurance company, my main responsibility back then was to assess risks.  In order to do so, you must take into account factual variables like historical data, statistics, etc., and based on that information, you can somewhat predict the likelihood of future events.  With regard to today's ride, taking into account Todd having his TT bike, him typically generating 300-350 watts average with speeds for solo runs in the 23's, you gotta think it would be predictable that he would be in crush mode today.  I know I did when I saw him take off initially.  Vince caught on early as well, but the rest of the bunch got caught sleeping not having given enough weight to the aforementioned variables.  Amateurs!  I literally had to sprint when I took off since Todd had already gapped the rest off us early on, and Vince also had to do the same in order to catch the both of us on Peltason.  Everyone was long gone behind us by that point...and we were less than a mile out.

Vince and I knew better than to jump ahead of Todd and take a pull while he's on that speed machine.  I wouldn't say we sat comfortably behind him the whole time as it still took a lot of work just to keep up.  Hell, we did a 21.3 average sitting behind him all the way up to Bonita Canyon.

Even as we climbed up San Miguel and Spyglass, we were still just hanging on all the way to San Joaquin.  As we started climbing up San Joaquin, I couldn't hang so as Vince put it, Todd #5'd me.  He and Todd gapped me pretty good, so when I had the opportunity to cut on Ridge Park to NPC (they went straight), I took it hoping to head them off.  Fortunately, I was able to get ahead of them just as I got on NPC where they were both stopped at a light.  Now I could have slowed down and waited for them to catch up, but what fun would that be?

I knew it would just be a matter of time when they'd catch back up to me, so I kept peering behind me every so often just so I can be prepared for when they pass.  I thought for sure by Pelican they'd be reeling me in, but surprisingly I didn't see them until they were just coming up to the light on Poppy on PCH.  It turns out Todd dropped his water bottle on Pelican and they both went back up to get it before chasing me down.  Now it makes sense.

We made our way through Ocean and finally onto Avocado where we ended up running into Jeremy, Jaffe, Mitchell and Vin.  We just hit the green light upon arriving at the intersection, but the guys were all ready as we passed where everyone jumped on Todd's pain train on PCH.  I think I just barely latched back on at the time and was thankful we got caught at the light going onto Back Bay Drive from Jamboree.

On Back Bay, Todd kept the pace up and none of us were too eager to try and get past him.  Vince did relieve him at some point as did I subsequently, but after Todd passed again, we just sat and rode him out all the way to the end.  Awesome pull.  We did see Mike Z. going the opposite way.  Nice to see him come out!

On Jamboree, initially Vince took the lead, but I made my way up to and past him.  Todd came by eventually and passed us both, but Vince was able to keep up with him whereas I was just over it (Vince points out this was where I got #5'd for a 2nd time).  Yeah, Todd's a beast on that TT bike, so he can #5 me all day long on that thing.  Nothing new here, folks.

I wasn't sure how the sprint on Bison was going to go, but when Todd started to gap everyone, I was just content to try and ride up to him.  As I showed him my wheel, however, Todd wouldn't have it and STILL was able to amp it up enough to get to California first.

Now after reading about how we sat behind Todd most of the time, you'd think maybe that we didn't get a great workout.  I'd beg to differ.  We need that kind of punishment more often.

Thanks for coming out, gents!