Strava (Garmin acting up - forgot to encase in plastic, so not connecting)
Attendees: Shannon, Andy, Mitchell, Vin, Vince, Adrian and Jeremy
First of all, let me talk about the weather. I think the conditions today were nearly perfect for a very fast pace ride. Low winds, overcast, mild temperature...what more can you ask for? If it continues through the afternoon, I'm expecting Todd will easily be setting his best time for his TT race this evening. For the rest of us, however, we planned to pull it back today given the upcoming training on Saturday up Mt. Baldy where we didn't really get to take full advantage of it. I'm just not sure who'll buy that a 20.7 mph average for today's BB > PCH > CDM > NPC loop is considered pulling back.
It started out easy enough although Vin seemed to be on a mission early on to get to the bottom of California. There must have been a sale down on University or something. Vince, aka the instigator, attempted to recruit Vin for a breakaway once we were on the bike trail, but I believe Vin kept having chain problems so the rest of us were able to roll up on Vince by the time we got on Back Bay. It was nice that no one in the chase group panicked to give chase, so we just kept the pace nice and steady as we eventually made our way to him.
Going through Back Bay, everyone seemed to be taking turns in the rotation. Some were longer and stronger than others as usual, but at least people were pulling up to the front. Okay, so there were the occasional "hold outs" from what I could see, but I suppose some people gots to do what they gots to do. Just sayin'.
Toward the end of Back Bay, Adrian, Vince and Shannon gave the ol' sprint to the gate a run. I hung back and couldn't really see who took it, so I won't speculate. I will say, however, that the effort up front through Back Bay leading up to the sprint were not comparable among the three (cough, Adrian was less, cough), but do we really need to factor that in? HA.
Shannon and Vince kept their pace up and the rest of us slowly made our way up to them by the time we got to Bayside. Thankfully, the light to go on PCH was red.
When we started up PCH, at first I was content to stay in the back during the climb but I saw Jeremy up front selflessly pulling the rest of us behind him. I started making my way up to work with him (since that's what I do), but it seems he may have taken that as a sign of aggression. He started to pick up the pace where it made it difficult to pass, so I dropped in behind him, clicked down a couple gears, and THEN spun my way past him.
The group came around after my pull and actually had a pretty aggressive pace that I just didn't want to have anything to do with at that point. I was lucky though as I was able to get behind them just after they started making their way through the CDM neighborhood after Avocado.
There was a little separation on Ocean with Vin seemingly wanting to break away on his own and others charging the hill beforehand, but all-in-all, we were all back together by the time we got back on PCH after Poppy.
On PCH, Vince managed to breakaway with Vin again but kept the breakaway while Shannon led the charge. The interesting part was when Shannon seemingly would pull to the right to let someone pass and take a pull, everyone behind him would pull to the right behind him. Goodness. When I saw Adrian in front of me stop pedaling a couple times, I finally called out "if you're not pedaling, get to the front!" Immediately, Adrian started making his way to the front and actually started to earn his keep taking a guilt pull all the way to NPC. You go, boy.
Vince had gotten the left turn light to NPC ahead of us, so with the light having turned red we all opted to cross via the crosswalk. We couldn't really see Vince once we started climbing, but Shannon thought he saw that Vince had gone straight rather than turning left on Pelican. We slowed just before Pelican to contemplate what to do but ultimately decided to go up NPC and give chase. The good news is we caught who were chasing. The bad news is it wasn't Vince. HA HA. Shannon dropped the hammer going up NPC, so the rest of us did what we could to make our way up behind him.
We regrouped at the top after waiting for Vince to come out of Pelican. Vince made it clear to the other guys not going to Baldy this weekend that he was dissatisfied with their decision not to train up Pelican. Too funny! We continued on NPC toward Bonita Canyon, and while I had the front, Vince (doing what Vince does) started to sprint by me as we were getting ready to descend. I was game and closed the gap he created but with a lot of effort. Shannon and Adrian were up for mixing it up on the downhill as well, so they all took off while I had the rest of my posse behind me. It's how I roll.
The Bonita Canyon paceline was pretty solid with people taking turns to keep the pace up. After crossing McArthur, I found myself in the same predicament again where Vince went sprinting by me while at the front. When I looked back and saw no one else followed, however, I thought a breakaway at that point would be perfect. Unfortunately for us, we got caught at the light to cross Jamboree onto Eastbluff. Apparently, it was fortunate for the others that we did since they still thought we were going up the Condo. For the record, the condo WAS a part of the original route but we changed it because we skipped Pelican. I did announce it...twice. HA HA
Vin got it in him to do some pulling on Eastbluff, so he and Shannon led the rest of us toward the bike trail heading back to CA. Once we got on the sidewalk, however, Vince yet again stood up and started to break away. I was working to close the gap, but he was just a little ahead of me as we made our way under the Jamboree underpass. Shannon and Adrian sprinted by subsequently and Vince got on where the three of them started making their way to the sprint point dropping me in the process. I dropped voluntarily anyway as I didn't have anything for them. Not sure who won that sprint but it seems Vince was definitely going for it given he had passed California and had to come back to the intersection after.
Going up California, I was wanting to work on my standing climb in preparation for this weekend. Jeremy had decided to amp it up on the climb, so I managed to make my way up to his wheel as he towed me up the hill. I took the front subsequently and near the top (maybe a little too late?), but I guess he was ready for cool down mode at that point. I wasn't really trying to race up it (wink wink).
Good solid team ride today again and thanks to Vince, I'm going to CHILL tomorrow for sure. Great job out there everyone.
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