Lunch Ride - Puke Route

Strava:  http://app.strava.com/activities/44160325

Attendees:  Galen, Vince, Todd, Vin, Jaffe, Jeremy, Hiroshi, Adrian and Peter


Damn...whose dumbass idea was it to do to the puke route today?  Oh wait...that would be mine.  I guess the thought of doing the BWR has me nervous where I figure it would be better to embrace the hills rather than run from them.  It's not going to be any easier otherwise.  Yeah, whatever.  This route sucks!

Good sized crew came out today and nice to see Galen again on a lunch ride.  Todd came to the gym a little late, but we were all fine waiting for him as we figured we'd hold him out on the hills as much as we could until he broke away.  He doesn't mind anyway.

When we started off, Todd was hanging toward the back with Galen so I figured I would too.  Galen eventually pushed up toward the front to help get us to Bonita Canyon, but I stayed with Todd just because that's always the smart thing to do on a route like this.

Everyone managed to stay together up to NPC, but once we started climbing and Todd took the front, we all lined up behind him.  He led us up at a good pace, but probably too good as by the time we got to San Joaquin, it had thinned out to just Galen, me, Vince and Hiroshi.  Galen did take a pull near the top, but I no one else including me was brave enough given the next hill being Ridge Park.

We had to wait to make the left to Ridge Park, which gave the rest of the guys time to catch up.  Once we crossed, Todd originally took the front but Mr. Safety (Jaffe, who by the way almost got hit from when we left at the corner...haha) took off ahead of everyone in a pretty convincing fashion.  This didn't seem to raise any concern though from my vantage point, and I guess rightfully so.  Todd led us past him some time after.

As we made our way past Jaffe, Galen and I were doing our best to keep Todd's pace.  We both were just slightly behind Todd with Vince not too far behind us by the time we hit the stop sign.  I had thought Galen was going to get some extra credit action, which may have helped me reel Todd in by the cul-de-sac, but as we got to the intersection, Galen says "I don't have it today" and makes the right turn.  Damn!  I could hear Vince saying something to him, but I was on the verge of losing consciousness so I'm not sure what.  In any case, both of them ended up turning and I went to try and see if I can get lucky and catch Todd in the extra credit section.  Can you say "wishful thinking?"

I wasn't too far behind, and I could see him on the climb before going on Vista, but by the time I made the left turn, he was gone...and pretty much everyone else too.  Bummer.

I did manage to see Jeremy on NPC and when I made the right turn to Pelican, I think I saw Todd ahead of me again, but by the time we got to the final climb, he was pulling away.  I saw him pass Adrian on that climb, but I was way too far behind to do the same.  I almost caught Adrian at NPC, but he had gotten a light that turned red before i could make it across.

As I made the right turn to go up Vista, it looked like Adrian was just soft pedaling so I started to make my way toward him.  Once I got to him, he says "Oh there you are" and then started to pick up the pace again to pull away and make it to the false flat before me.  I didn't really make up any ground on that section, but I stood up to pass him on the final climb.  However, he wasn't done yet and started pushing too.  He passed me again and pulled away a little bit, but I made my way back up to him for another pass.  He dug deep before the crest and just made it past me before the top and then got on the descent on Ridge Park ahead of me.

He stayed ahead of me all the way down NPC, but I rolled up on him at the bottom to make the left turn together on Bonita Canyon.  Now when we started rolling, I took the front and convinced myself he would ride the draft the whole way back.  To my surprise, he started taking turns up front too.  Wha?  Now we did see some guys up ahead who went across onto Ford, but at first I didn't think they were our guys.  However, as we reached that intersection, Adrian confirmed that they were.  We were going to wait to go across and chase them, but we spent enough time out there already and opted to just head back.

I knew Adrian would want to try and get some sprint action on Bison, so I led him lead us out to see if he'd have enough to break me off.  I won't go into any detail or anything in fear of seemingly bragging, but let's just say he got set the F up.  HAHAHAHA!

Good ride today, gents!  Too bad we all got strung out eventually, but that's to be expected on this route.  Thanks for coming out!