Strava: Garmin failing to connect...again! Hopefully I can upload from home.
It's nice to get out on a regular road bike again after riding the TT bike exclusively for the last several weeks. Today ended up being a beautiful day with the weather having warmed up enough not requiring any warmers of any sort. Bonus! The forecast this morning did threaten of winds in the 18-20 mph range, but as with yesterday, it changed and the winds were as bad as predicted. There were some sections that felt pretty route wind-wise, but nothing too horribly bad.
Mitchell, Adrian, Vin and Jaffe came out with me for this declared BRCM black jersey day. I would seriously question any technical specs Jaffe writes up that include color coding, since he was the only one who wore red. At least it was BRCM.
It was too bad none of the more aggro guys could come out on my first 2013 lunch ride...only because I knew it would be where I'd end up having to do most of the work. Of course when I said let's go, everyone waited patiently until I started to roll so they can line up behind me. smh. When we got on the climb on Anteater, however, Jaffe wanted to show his climbing ability on his new R5 and passed me as he pedaled off the seat. I looked back when he did, and of course, no one latched on so I had to jump behind Jaffe until he slowed down just before getting to the stop sign. I passed him and stayed up front until Culver with a respectable 19.6 average to that point.
When we turned left on Culver, Vin took the front and gapped early on, but I reeled him in and let him do some work as we climbed to the top. It was after we crested that I came around him to take over and keep the group pace up, and in typical Adrian fashion, he shot again as we neared Campus probably so he can advance in that Strava segment.
I kept Adrian ahead of me as we turned on Campus but got up front before we made the right on Turtle Rock. As we started the climb, I was trying to keep a good pace going up but did hope someone would relieve me at some point. I peeked behind me midway up and saw that there was only one guy behind me, but I couldn't make out who it was since I only glanced back quickly. When he started to come around, I realized it was my wingman, Mitchell. That's right...he came around and took pulls.
It was just Mitchell and I for the rest of the ride since it turns out Vin got another flat today while riding behind me. I'm not sure how Adrian and Jaffe were affected by this since we didn't see them anymore (except Mitchell did see Jaffe climbing Summit on his descent) He questioned why he seems to get a flat behind me (inferring that I must do something to sabotage his tires to slow him down), but the reality of the situation is 1) if he rode up front more, it's likely this wouldn't happen and 2) stop buying retreaded Contis at bargain prices. If you think Vin is not capable of #2, let me tell ya....
Mitchell was a trooper and would come around and take pulls just when I think I could use it. I did get ahead of him on some of the climbs, but he was never too far behind allowing us to finish together for the ride. Thanks, buddy! I owe you a hamburger in our next event!
Good to be back on the road bike for sure. Thanks, gents!
No comments:
Post a Comment