Strava: http://app.strava.com/activities/97078894 (Yesterday) http://app.strava.com/activities/97250138 (today)
I've been a little pressed for time lately where I often only get to write at night, but I'm probably going to be blogging less for a while so I can spend the evening enjoying the family. I'll throw this one out there though and cover my ride from yesterday and today. I'll try and make time to write about the weekend ones though.
Yesterday was a TT trainer with just Todd and me. Todd wanted to get a little more hill training, so we ended up doing the full Turtle Rock ring along with a climb up NPC. We saw Shannon at the gym, but he had his road bike and had planned to do his own thing (133 loop).
As you may know, it's rather challenging to ride with Todd on the TT bike. He definitely does a lot of the work up front on the hills and willingly at that. I try to do what I can to help, but it seems pointless at times where all I can do is return the favor on the flats and downhills. I'll still take turns up front on some climbs, but the ratio is definitely not even. We did well working with one another as we did the Ring and I tried to save enough to stay with him on NPC, but I broke off after a misshift and he just continued to increase the gap after that. I was glad he waited for me around the corner on NPC. From that point on, I was determined to do more work, so I worked my tail off after that. He later gave me kudos for the pulls on San Joaquin and BB. Yay.
We decided to climb up Jamboree to finish, and Todd had started a little ahead of me and led for a bit. I ended up finding a good gear to be in along with a rhythm/cadence I can hold that allowed me to make my way back up to him. When I saw that I still had more and opted to pass Todd, who I thought was topped out, he stood up and made his way past me where all I could do was watch. Nice!
It was a good training ride where we managed a 22 average (Strava knocked me down a couple ticks), which isn't bad considering all the climbing involved.
For today's ride, we still had a fairly good-sized crew out for a holiday week that included me, Todd, Adrian, Jeremy, Mitchell and Vin. Everyone represented BRCM jerseys, with two wearing the new black, 2 wearing the OG black, 1 in red, and one in yellow (this was a jersey Adrian got from our Marketing that has BRCM on it, but was left over from one of our customers). Nice to see all BRCM though.
It was a good ride today where everyone was doing what they can when they could. That's also about as nice to see as everyone representing BRCM. All of us managed to stay together for at least half of the ride, which was cool. On the climb up San Joaquin toward NPC was when there was some separation among us.
Jeremy was the first to break away and had gotten a pretty sizeable gap over the rest of us. Everyone lined up behind Todd, including me, as he worked his way toward and past Jeremy about half way up. At first, I thought everyone else had stayed with us as we kept climbing, but toward the top, I saw that only Mitchell was able to hang on. I tried to make my way past Todd near the top, but you guys know Todd's sentiment would be "ain't nobody got time for that." He accelerated where I was relegated to #2 again (after I asked Mitchell to let me back in).
The 3 of us got on NPC, and I took turns with Todd as we descended toward Pelican. We saw a guy from BRCM out there too, so he jumped on behind us after we made our way past him.
Todd got a little worked on the descent, but I coasted mostly in a tuck to keep at speed where after we rounded Pelican, I had momentum where I made my way past Todd on the climb and even gapped him. However, I knew that would only be temporary, so I managed my pace to where I could latch on again once he passed me. As we headed up the final climb, Todd had just a little gap on me, but I found that "rhythm" again where I was able to get by him again. Can you say poke the bear? Poke, Poke. As before, Todd passed me again before the top and held the front to lead all the way up to the top of Vista. The gap between us would shrink and grow the whole time, but ultimately Todd made it to the top a few seconds ahead of me. What I probably failed to mention earlier though was how Todd rode already this morning, so I'm certain I'd have been left behind much further had that not been the case.
We waited to regroup at the top, and took off after Vin and Mitchell arrived seeing no one else with them. Jeremy had to get back and opted to skip Vista and there was just no sign of Adrian.
The descent down Ridge Park was fun but there was a car that looked like it may make a left turn in front of us where that made some check up. Thankfully, it didn't.
The descent down San Joaquin was fun as well where I thought Todd and I would do all the leading, but at one point as I was getting ready to jump behind Todd after rotating out, Vin was there followed by Mitchell, so they were game to help keep the pace up as well. This was also seen on McArthur where both Mitchell and Vin took the front after Todd cranking away. I followed Vin and led toward the Bonita Canyon intersection where Todd came by before to help us make the green light. I had to dig really deep just to be able to latch on, but I noticed I was the only one as we made our way through the intersection.
We finished up on Bison with just the two of us broken away, but I did see Vin not too far away behind us. I opted to pick up the pace at that point taking the front and giving Todd a lead out to finish first to California.
Good work out there, gents! You've earned yourself a whole turkey leg after today's ride.
I've been a little pressed for time lately where I often only get to write at night, but I'm probably going to be blogging less for a while so I can spend the evening enjoying the family. I'll throw this one out there though and cover my ride from yesterday and today. I'll try and make time to write about the weekend ones though.
Yesterday was a TT trainer with just Todd and me. Todd wanted to get a little more hill training, so we ended up doing the full Turtle Rock ring along with a climb up NPC. We saw Shannon at the gym, but he had his road bike and had planned to do his own thing (133 loop).
As you may know, it's rather challenging to ride with Todd on the TT bike. He definitely does a lot of the work up front on the hills and willingly at that. I try to do what I can to help, but it seems pointless at times where all I can do is return the favor on the flats and downhills. I'll still take turns up front on some climbs, but the ratio is definitely not even. We did well working with one another as we did the Ring and I tried to save enough to stay with him on NPC, but I broke off after a misshift and he just continued to increase the gap after that. I was glad he waited for me around the corner on NPC. From that point on, I was determined to do more work, so I worked my tail off after that. He later gave me kudos for the pulls on San Joaquin and BB. Yay.
We decided to climb up Jamboree to finish, and Todd had started a little ahead of me and led for a bit. I ended up finding a good gear to be in along with a rhythm/cadence I can hold that allowed me to make my way back up to him. When I saw that I still had more and opted to pass Todd, who I thought was topped out, he stood up and made his way past me where all I could do was watch. Nice!
It was a good training ride where we managed a 22 average (Strava knocked me down a couple ticks), which isn't bad considering all the climbing involved.
For today's ride, we still had a fairly good-sized crew out for a holiday week that included me, Todd, Adrian, Jeremy, Mitchell and Vin. Everyone represented BRCM jerseys, with two wearing the new black, 2 wearing the OG black, 1 in red, and one in yellow (this was a jersey Adrian got from our Marketing that has BRCM on it, but was left over from one of our customers). Nice to see all BRCM though.
It was a good ride today where everyone was doing what they can when they could. That's also about as nice to see as everyone representing BRCM. All of us managed to stay together for at least half of the ride, which was cool. On the climb up San Joaquin toward NPC was when there was some separation among us.
Jeremy was the first to break away and had gotten a pretty sizeable gap over the rest of us. Everyone lined up behind Todd, including me, as he worked his way toward and past Jeremy about half way up. At first, I thought everyone else had stayed with us as we kept climbing, but toward the top, I saw that only Mitchell was able to hang on. I tried to make my way past Todd near the top, but you guys know Todd's sentiment would be "ain't nobody got time for that." He accelerated where I was relegated to #2 again (after I asked Mitchell to let me back in).
The 3 of us got on NPC, and I took turns with Todd as we descended toward Pelican. We saw a guy from BRCM out there too, so he jumped on behind us after we made our way past him.
Todd got a little worked on the descent, but I coasted mostly in a tuck to keep at speed where after we rounded Pelican, I had momentum where I made my way past Todd on the climb and even gapped him. However, I knew that would only be temporary, so I managed my pace to where I could latch on again once he passed me. As we headed up the final climb, Todd had just a little gap on me, but I found that "rhythm" again where I was able to get by him again. Can you say poke the bear? Poke, Poke. As before, Todd passed me again before the top and held the front to lead all the way up to the top of Vista. The gap between us would shrink and grow the whole time, but ultimately Todd made it to the top a few seconds ahead of me. What I probably failed to mention earlier though was how Todd rode already this morning, so I'm certain I'd have been left behind much further had that not been the case.
We waited to regroup at the top, and took off after Vin and Mitchell arrived seeing no one else with them. Jeremy had to get back and opted to skip Vista and there was just no sign of Adrian.
The descent down Ridge Park was fun but there was a car that looked like it may make a left turn in front of us where that made some check up. Thankfully, it didn't.
The descent down San Joaquin was fun as well where I thought Todd and I would do all the leading, but at one point as I was getting ready to jump behind Todd after rotating out, Vin was there followed by Mitchell, so they were game to help keep the pace up as well. This was also seen on McArthur where both Mitchell and Vin took the front after Todd cranking away. I followed Vin and led toward the Bonita Canyon intersection where Todd came by before to help us make the green light. I had to dig really deep just to be able to latch on, but I noticed I was the only one as we made our way through the intersection.
We finished up on Bison with just the two of us broken away, but I did see Vin not too far away behind us. I opted to pick up the pace at that point taking the front and giving Todd a lead out to finish first to California.
Good work out there, gents! You've earned yourself a whole turkey leg after today's ride.
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