Strava: http://app.strava.com/activities/92050547
Attendees: Shannon, Todd, Vince, Jeremy, Adrian, Vin, Jaffe, Mitchell, Hiroshi and me
This was another good-sized group today. I guess the cooler temperatures are making for better conditions to get the fair-weather riders (cough, Mitchell, cough) to come out more regularly. For some, it actually allows them to do two rides as seen with Hiroshi's Strava where he did the coffee crew this morning followed by our lunch ride. Nice.
I brought my TT bike wanting to get more seat time on it due to my limited riding schedule this week, but it was definitely not the ideal for today's route that included over 1700 ft of climbing. I chose the route since 1) no one can say I'm on a cheater bike given all the climbing (although Todd still did despite telling me Saturday to do what I need to do...haha) and 2) I really wanted to get some hill training on the TT bike. I knew I'd be dropping off given the strength of the group, but my goal was just to find a rhythm and work on getting more comfortable climbing.
When we started off, Todd must have been eager to test out his newly installed crank-based power meter as he darted down California like he was raring to breakaway. I know I was working early on just to not let him get too far away. Fortunately, we all caught a light at the bottom, so he didn't get to take off and play rabbit too early.
On the bike trail, Todd and Shannon were taking turns up front, but I pushed up as soon as I could to help as well given that I was on a cheater bike. I thought I'd be doing most of the work up and into Back Bay, but Todd, Shannon and Jeremy were all pushing up and wanting in on the rotation too. It's odd to rotate with guys on road bikes though as this never happens elsewhere. Nice. It was a little windy on the way out to Back Bay, so the rotations made it more tolerable. Plus, I didn't want to kill it on Back Bay knowing full well that the more I did, the more it will set me back on the climbs starting at San Joaquin. Despite this, everyone mad passed me once we got onto San Joaquin as we climbed our way up to Jamboree. Hell, even my wingman seemed to leave me for dead. HAHA. It was fortunate that they all got caught at the light.
Speaking of light, I think we hit almost every single red light as we were heading up toward NPC. From each light, it felt like the guys would take off and gap me immediately where I would never be able to ride up to them until they hit the next light. By the time we got past Spyglass, however, that gap grew big fast. I was able to pick up Jaffe near the bottom to get him up to where it flattened out, but I broke away from him and started to give chase to Vince and Hiroshi who I could see ahead of me.
Vince and Hiroshi caught up to Mitchell and Vin on NPC just ahead of me and got caught at a light. As Vince saw I was approaching, he tore off from the light hoping to inspire the rest of the guys to rotate with him and keep me at bay. Unfortunately for Vince, no one seemed to want to sign up for that as he led all the way down and kept the gap as he climbed up Pelican. I was off the back given they were going at a pretty good pace, but after rounding the turn to Pelican I passed Hiroshi and Vin shortly after. Mitchell had latched on as I passed (now he wants to be my wingman) as I slowly tried making my way to Vince. I could never catch Vince on the first few climbs, but got some momentum on the last climb and made my way past him about a quarter of the way up. At this point, I found a tempo for the gear I was in that I could hold and let me pull away on the climb.
When I got to the light, it was red but it turned green just as I was about to come to a stop. Once I got going again, Vince and Hiroshi passed me and seemed to be working together as they pulled away on NPC and headed to Vista. Mitchell and Vin lined up behind me though, so I led them onto Vista for the climb. Once again, I was able to find a gear and tempo that allowed me to keep a pretty consistent pace that allowed me to push past Vince and Hiroshi. As before, the pace was good enough to create a gap behind me. I was able to hold the gap all the way to the top, but I think Vince and the others were closing at the last part of the hill.
I didn't see Todd, Jeremy or Shannon, who had pretty much been broken away the whole time, and I knew no one was going to stop behind me, so I kept going once I got on Park Ridge. I saw Vince just behind me as I started the descent, so I knew he wouldn't be far behind. I was a little nervous descending on the aero bars given that my rear brakes were pretty loose and I didn't want to cook my wheels should someone pull out from the side street. I checked up as a result, and about midway down, Vince went zooming by past me. We both had to check up as we headed onto NPC due to a truck waiting at the corner, and Vince had a gap on me when he entered where I expected that I'd need to give chase on the NPC descent to try and reel him in. I called out to go straight, but I think Vince took that as he was suppose to go straight on Park Ridge to ultimately end up on San Joaquin. Thus, he made an abrupt left turn to make the green left turn light onto San Joaquin and I race to do the same barely making it across just in case the others ahead of us had done the same. It turned out they didn't, but at least I could ride with Vince.
We saw some guys ahead of us, so I called out to Vince to latch on as I passed to work and reel them in. We were able to do so just as it started to Descend toward Spyglass with Vince taking another turn as we approached the street to keep the pace up. One guy did give chase to us as we passed, and eventually caught us at the light on Marguerite. His buddies also showed up, so I thought I'd give them a nice pull as we made our way to McArthur. They ended up going straight as we made the right turn onto McArthur, but I was hoping they would follow since I really wanted to open it up on this descent. Vince tucked in behind me, but I had ended up breaking away since I was in full steam ahead mode. I also got a green light on Bonita Canyon, so I was able to set my PR for that descent as a result.
I didn't slow down much and made my way onto Bison where I saw Shannon ahead of me. I was still shooting for a 20 mph avg since it was showing 19.9 on my Garmin after I rounded the Bison corner, so I kept pushing all the way to California and got to see it go up to 20.0 mph even just as I made the turn. Wouldn't you know it though...Strava knocked it back down to 19.9. Sigh.
We arrived at the gym, and for the most part, everyone came in shortly after our arrival. Todd and Jeremy did some extra credit after Vista, so I guess we were able to get by them or we had a faster run to Bison with the path we took. We may need to separate these two, and Shannon too, if we want to have a more cohesive hilly ride since they keep breaking away on the hills. Don't hold your breath though.
Good job out there, gents, and thanks for not giving me too hard of a time with my TT bike. Unfortunately, I'll be riding this primarily in preparation for the upcoming Palm Desert TT and the Fiesta Island TT, but this just means free tows on the flatter sections. Cool, right?
Thanks for coming out!
Attendees: Shannon, Todd, Vince, Jeremy, Adrian, Vin, Jaffe, Mitchell, Hiroshi and me
This was another good-sized group today. I guess the cooler temperatures are making for better conditions to get the fair-weather riders (cough, Mitchell, cough) to come out more regularly. For some, it actually allows them to do two rides as seen with Hiroshi's Strava where he did the coffee crew this morning followed by our lunch ride. Nice.
I brought my TT bike wanting to get more seat time on it due to my limited riding schedule this week, but it was definitely not the ideal for today's route that included over 1700 ft of climbing. I chose the route since 1) no one can say I'm on a cheater bike given all the climbing (although Todd still did despite telling me Saturday to do what I need to do...haha) and 2) I really wanted to get some hill training on the TT bike. I knew I'd be dropping off given the strength of the group, but my goal was just to find a rhythm and work on getting more comfortable climbing.
When we started off, Todd must have been eager to test out his newly installed crank-based power meter as he darted down California like he was raring to breakaway. I know I was working early on just to not let him get too far away. Fortunately, we all caught a light at the bottom, so he didn't get to take off and play rabbit too early.
On the bike trail, Todd and Shannon were taking turns up front, but I pushed up as soon as I could to help as well given that I was on a cheater bike. I thought I'd be doing most of the work up and into Back Bay, but Todd, Shannon and Jeremy were all pushing up and wanting in on the rotation too. It's odd to rotate with guys on road bikes though as this never happens elsewhere. Nice. It was a little windy on the way out to Back Bay, so the rotations made it more tolerable. Plus, I didn't want to kill it on Back Bay knowing full well that the more I did, the more it will set me back on the climbs starting at San Joaquin. Despite this, everyone mad passed me once we got onto San Joaquin as we climbed our way up to Jamboree. Hell, even my wingman seemed to leave me for dead. HAHA. It was fortunate that they all got caught at the light.
Speaking of light, I think we hit almost every single red light as we were heading up toward NPC. From each light, it felt like the guys would take off and gap me immediately where I would never be able to ride up to them until they hit the next light. By the time we got past Spyglass, however, that gap grew big fast. I was able to pick up Jaffe near the bottom to get him up to where it flattened out, but I broke away from him and started to give chase to Vince and Hiroshi who I could see ahead of me.
Vince and Hiroshi caught up to Mitchell and Vin on NPC just ahead of me and got caught at a light. As Vince saw I was approaching, he tore off from the light hoping to inspire the rest of the guys to rotate with him and keep me at bay. Unfortunately for Vince, no one seemed to want to sign up for that as he led all the way down and kept the gap as he climbed up Pelican. I was off the back given they were going at a pretty good pace, but after rounding the turn to Pelican I passed Hiroshi and Vin shortly after. Mitchell had latched on as I passed (now he wants to be my wingman) as I slowly tried making my way to Vince. I could never catch Vince on the first few climbs, but got some momentum on the last climb and made my way past him about a quarter of the way up. At this point, I found a tempo for the gear I was in that I could hold and let me pull away on the climb.
When I got to the light, it was red but it turned green just as I was about to come to a stop. Once I got going again, Vince and Hiroshi passed me and seemed to be working together as they pulled away on NPC and headed to Vista. Mitchell and Vin lined up behind me though, so I led them onto Vista for the climb. Once again, I was able to find a gear and tempo that allowed me to keep a pretty consistent pace that allowed me to push past Vince and Hiroshi. As before, the pace was good enough to create a gap behind me. I was able to hold the gap all the way to the top, but I think Vince and the others were closing at the last part of the hill.
I didn't see Todd, Jeremy or Shannon, who had pretty much been broken away the whole time, and I knew no one was going to stop behind me, so I kept going once I got on Park Ridge. I saw Vince just behind me as I started the descent, so I knew he wouldn't be far behind. I was a little nervous descending on the aero bars given that my rear brakes were pretty loose and I didn't want to cook my wheels should someone pull out from the side street. I checked up as a result, and about midway down, Vince went zooming by past me. We both had to check up as we headed onto NPC due to a truck waiting at the corner, and Vince had a gap on me when he entered where I expected that I'd need to give chase on the NPC descent to try and reel him in. I called out to go straight, but I think Vince took that as he was suppose to go straight on Park Ridge to ultimately end up on San Joaquin. Thus, he made an abrupt left turn to make the green left turn light onto San Joaquin and I race to do the same barely making it across just in case the others ahead of us had done the same. It turned out they didn't, but at least I could ride with Vince.
We saw some guys ahead of us, so I called out to Vince to latch on as I passed to work and reel them in. We were able to do so just as it started to Descend toward Spyglass with Vince taking another turn as we approached the street to keep the pace up. One guy did give chase to us as we passed, and eventually caught us at the light on Marguerite. His buddies also showed up, so I thought I'd give them a nice pull as we made our way to McArthur. They ended up going straight as we made the right turn onto McArthur, but I was hoping they would follow since I really wanted to open it up on this descent. Vince tucked in behind me, but I had ended up breaking away since I was in full steam ahead mode. I also got a green light on Bonita Canyon, so I was able to set my PR for that descent as a result.
I didn't slow down much and made my way onto Bison where I saw Shannon ahead of me. I was still shooting for a 20 mph avg since it was showing 19.9 on my Garmin after I rounded the Bison corner, so I kept pushing all the way to California and got to see it go up to 20.0 mph even just as I made the turn. Wouldn't you know it though...Strava knocked it back down to 19.9. Sigh.
We arrived at the gym, and for the most part, everyone came in shortly after our arrival. Todd and Jeremy did some extra credit after Vista, so I guess we were able to get by them or we had a faster run to Bison with the path we took. We may need to separate these two, and Shannon too, if we want to have a more cohesive hilly ride since they keep breaking away on the hills. Don't hold your breath though.
Good job out there, gents, and thanks for not giving me too hard of a time with my TT bike. Unfortunately, I'll be riding this primarily in preparation for the upcoming Palm Desert TT and the Fiesta Island TT, but this just means free tows on the flatter sections. Cool, right?
Thanks for coming out!
Shannon's version:
So, I just got a call from Rich. He asked me to blog about the ride, as he is still on course.
Given the hills and his TT rig it is understandable… I mean if you can’t count to 5.
I have no idea why someone would select a route with hills and then bring a TT bike, but then again, I am not even going to think about it. More power to them (and I use the term ‘power’ figuratively’).
Anyway….
On the way out we caught the light from CA to the BB, sweet.
There seemed to be some apprehension on the Back Bay, with folks debating whether or not they owned a pair. Rich got hung out quite a bit. I mean, he deserves it showing up on that bike, but eventually it was just Richdiculous, and we started rotating through.
San Joaq could have been ugly if the lights worked at all in our favor. But, they did not. So Todd couldn’t decimate us. Eventually we got to the climbing. Mitch made a good move and held Todd and Jeremy’s wheel for a while, nice. About ¾ of the way up things broke apart and the group splintered for what appeared to be the rest of the ride.
Todd and I had words about taking the circuitous route to NPC, and thanks to a red light he agreed to take the shortcut. The hammer-fest in the lead group was brutal, I was happy to trail him from a distance, eventually getting Jeremy back to the point where he could latch on and I could bail out.
Looks like the group took a different route back, which was a good idea given the lights.
These hour 1:10 rides are tough for working folks, I will re-align my priorities.
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