Wednesday is one of our typical TT training days, so Shannon, Todd and I had come out on our TT bikes with plans to do a Portola OAB plus a Jamboree finish. For the road bike crew, Mitchell had come out along with Jaffe and Hiroshi, and to our welcomed surprise, S-Gary made it out as well. I'm not sure this was an ideal ride to come back to for Gary given that 3 of us were on TT bikes, but there were definitely enough on road bikes out there too to keep things interesting.
After hitting the light on California, Todd led us onto the bike trail once it turned green and immediately began to gap the rest of us. Gary had made it onto the bike trail ahead of me and managed to latch on to Todd as they pulled away...nice. Once I got on the bike trail, I immediately had to work just to catch up to the two ahead of us, so I knew this was going to be less of a team TT training ride (where we work together more) and more of an individual "let's-see-how-fast-we-can-go" kinda thing.
Once we caught up to Todd and Gary, I pulled up to the front and took the next pull followed by Shannon to where the three of us began to rotate. It as nice to not have to jockey to get back in after rolling out since the road bike crew knew to let us 3 do the work. They hung on for a good portion of the bike trail as well, but at some point I looked back and found that the three of us were alone.
Each turn up front on our part seemed to be where everyone was trying to maximize their workouts today. There was hardly any looking back and waiting until everyone latched back on after some sharp turns, so the accordion effect today was pretty intense for whoever was in the back after coming out of a turn. I know because I was there a few times.
We stayed together to the Barranca light, and we caught the green upon arriving at the intersection. We saw one guy waiting to cross, who we later found out was Flint from Bike Religion, and he ended up taking off just ahead of us. Todd took off too, and actually gapped Shannon and me right away, so we had to work just to make our way back up to him. I think Todd must have taken the title of my blog yesterday seriously, as he was out for some pain payback on the flats/descents. HA HA.
Todd, Shannon and I kept the rotations up on the bike trail leading up to Portola, with Todd finish us up once we got to the top together. There was one moment where I missed my rotation to the front since I was off the back a little after an underpass where Todd took that as point to push up to the front, so Shannon had to jump back in behind him. When Shannon took the subsequent pull, I tried to relieve him early to keep things "fair" but he didn't want any of it...it's not how he rolls.
There were women blocking the very top of Portola, so Todd had to make u-turn just before them. Shannon and I were right behind him, but we can only make the u-turn one at a time. Todd didn't waste any time waiting for us, so after he made the u-turn he took off. Shannon did the same thing after he completed his u-turn, so I had some serious catching up to do once I completed mine. The sucky part was I had unclipped when making the u-turn just to make sure I didn't fall in front of the ladies, so it took me just a little bit to be able to get going again. AAARRGHHH!!!
Not wanting them to get away, I just dropped back on the aeros and began to give chase. Chasing others on road bikes is always a fun thing, but chasing others on TT bikes, especially if others are the likes of Shannon and Todd...not so much. It took a little time before I was finally able to make my way up to them, but had passed Jaffe and Flint in the process going the opposite way. Jaffe can testify how I was definitely off the back giving chase as he had started wondering if he can turn around and latch on to me since he thought I may not be able to catch Todd and Shannon. Looking at Strava, I averaged 28.2 just to catch up to them while they averaged 27.7 on the descent. Crazy.
When we made the sharp right turn on the trail, we saw that Mitchell was waiting there for us and he managed to latch back onto the three of us after we passed. Todd, Shannon and I kept pushing and taking turns up front pretty much as fast as we could go. We were moving so fast that at one point when I was up front, we dropped into an underpass descent and I literally flew off the ground and landed with my rear wheel getting a little sideways on the landing. That was especially scary given I was on the aero bars at the time.
When we got onto Harvard, Todd started hammering again, and Shannon didn't latch on right away so I came around and gave chase just so we can get back on Todd's wheel. Then, Todd and I began to rotate all the way to the Barranca bike trail. Todd was being beastly though and would keep coming around pretty fast just to push the pace faster and faster.
After we got onto the bike trail and crossed the bridge, I started to try and make my way up to the front again just to give Todd a little reprieve. However, as I began to pass him, he started accelerating even more like it was a race. Since I figured I wasn't about to blow myself up just to take the front, I decided that if he didn't want to give up the front, I wasn't going to try and take it from him.
Shannon had been with us after we crossed the bridge and probably observed some of the shennanigans going on. He started getting back in the rotation shortly after and was taking some pretty mad pulls up front. One notable pull was the flat stretch beside Main where he just kept going faster and faster making it very difficult to keep up let alone get by him to take the subsequent pull.
When he finally checked up, I pushed up to take the next pull giving him kudos as I passed, but I didn't have a whole lot in the tank at that point since it took a lot just to keep up. I held the front for a little bit though, but Todd eventually came around and led us for the rest of the bike trail. I figured Jamboree was going to be a bear anyway, so I hoped to wear Todd down just enough to make the climb manageable. Shannon had opted to take CA back, so it was just the two of us left and I wasn't about to be left all by myself. HA HA
As we got up to the University intersection just before the climb, I was hoping that the light would turn red just so I can catch my breath. However, it was green upon our approach and stayed that way allowing us to go through after checking to make sure the intersection was clear.
Todd had gotten on the road first and already started to gap early on but not too much. I needed to get into my own rhythm rather than trying to match his since I knew this was my only chance to catch him. Once I did, I slowly started my way back up to him. Now two things came to mind as I was approaching him: 1) keep the pace and hopefully he doesn't match it as I pass or 2) drop into the small chainring and spin like hell past hoping it would be enough to snap him off. I went with option 1 thinking my pace was enough to get by without him wanting to contest it. Stupid me...of course he'd contest it! Hello? As I was passing, you see him accelerate too and all I could do at that point was just try and take his rear wheel to lead us up to Bison to finish the hill out.
By the time we got to the top of Jamboree, our average was around 24.1. when we descended down Bison and headed to California, we hit about 3 lights in the process, so we had to amp it up some toward the end just to keep that average when finishing out the route. As usual, Strava knocked that average down a couple ticks and gave me a 23.9, but Garmin Connect backs up my data as shown on the display as 24.1. GC actually has 24.2 as our moving average also. Yowza!
Yeah, that's pretty fast. I feel kind of bad that we're getting all this Strava bling when we take out our TT bikes. That only lasts for a minute though and then I'm over it. HA HA. I'm thinking the next "Strava hunting" outing we have, we should take these TT bikes and bring home some serious hardware. It's probably like taking an elephant gun to shoot squirrels, but hey...where does it say we can't do that?
Thanks for coming out, gents!
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