Lunch Ride - Turtle Rock Starcrest Shady Summit Condo Route

Strava:  http://app.strava.com/activities/40691163

Attendees:  Vin, Vince, Todd, Jaffe, Hiroshi and Adrian

One would think that riding a 21 mph average century would be a great boost to the ego, but then you follow it up with one of our lunch rides and humility sets in once again...quickly.  Sigh. 

The ride started out with the other guys starting off ahead of us with Adrian even breaking away for a bit until we caught him on Anteater.  I took the front on E. Peltason to help with the chase, but then Todd took over and kept the front all the way to Bonita Canyon/Culver.

On Culver, others including myself worked to keep the pace up all the way to Campus, but once we hit Turtle Rock, everyone opted to let Todd set the pace and lined up behind him accordingly.  Hiroshi launched an attack on Starcrest early on, but Todd and Vince made their way past him to lead the climb.  Todd was taunting Vince by trying to shake him off his rear wheel as they climbed, but Vince was going to ride him out so both were sidewinding up the hill doing so.  I started making my way toward them, so they stopped that business and started charging up the hill.  Todd finished ahead with Vince just behind him.  Although I was behind them and came up third, the others rolled up shortly after as we regrouped at the top.

When we started rolling again, Adrian, Vince, Jaffe and Todd took off down Ridgeline and had a pretty good gap on us, but Vin and I worked together to close in on them by the bottom at the University bike trail.  They still tried to keep the pace up once on the bike trail making it hard to recover from the chase, but we all managed to stay together despite this.

Todd still continued to do most of the work, and we let him lead us up Shady Canyon.  Todd, Vince and I had gapped the others on the climb, and I was hoping to stay with them all the way up.  However, near the top both stood up and started sprinting to the crest leaving me wondering where the hell that came from. I was hoping to catch them on the other side, but the two got together and I was just never able to close.

Going up the rise toward Bonita Canyon, they were still just ahead of me, but once they hit the crest, the gap increased significantly where I was only able to catch up to them at the light to Bonita Canyon.  Jaffe, Vin and Hiroshi rolled up shortly after as well.

When we went up Turtle Ridge, Todd was leaading everyone up again, but I thought I found a tempo that I could hold pulling up in front of everyone and holding the front until Summit.  On Summit, I stayed up front hoping I could continue with this tempo, but despite feeling strong, Todd passed me in even a better tempo making me realize the futility of my efforts.  It wasn't long after when both Vince and Vin passed me, but with Hiroshi trailing behind making his way up to me, I figured enough was enough and finished just ahead of him.

As we made our way to the condo all together, I was thinking I would get my chance at taking one of the hills.  Todd and Vince led us onto the hill, but once I rounded I began hammering.  When I made my way past Vince, he called out to warn Todd (WTF?  HA HA) but I didn't think it mattered since I had momentum.  After climbing at a good pace, I noticed that someone had latched on behind me but wasn't sure who it was.  I thought if I just kept the pace up high enough, whoever it was wouldn't try to pass me before we got to Bison.  However, the next thing you know, Todd passes me shoving that bite of humility pie even further down my throat.  Nice work!

Okay, so I couldn't contest any hills today, but for sure I thought I'd give the sprint on Bison to California a pretty good go.  However, once we got on the 73 overpass, Vin launched a good sprint and just couldn't be caught by anyone (including me).  Good job!

 I think we're going to have start calling these lunch ride the Todd show.  Vince is also right there challenging on all the hills and showing his continued progression back to the top.  Vin, Hiroshi and Jaffe also continue to get stronger and stronger, so I think I may take up running again instead.  Yup...I may just need to do that.

Thanks for the training, gents!