Lunch Ride - Party of 5

Strava:  https://www.strava.com/activities/298832464

Attendees:  Todd, Shannon, Vin, Jaffe and me

Highlights:

• It looked like it was going to be cold for today's ride, but it was actually a little warm midway through.
• Smallish crew today, but I knew it was going to be a good workout nonetheless.
• Todd and Shannon the initial outbound tow to get us to the Bonita Canyon intersection.  Vin was up front early on, but it isn't a tow when he tears off with no one behind him in the draft.  SMH
• I wasn't feeling it for a good portion of the ride, but I'm lucky no one complained about me sitting in the draft for as long as I did.  
• Todd tore off after crossing Bonita Canyon to go up Shady, but Shannon didn't seem to want to chase him.  I would have but see the bullet above.  
• I finally rotated in at some point after the side walk, but Todd didn't seem to mind holding up the front.  He never does really.  He actually led all the way to the top of Shady as well.
• After we got to the bottom, I had gotten across the street ahead of everyone due to traffic and found myself up front and starting us off going up Knollcrest.  Todd held the front and Shannon eventually pushed up past me, Vin and Jaffe and trailed Todd on the final climb.  
• I tried a last minute burst on the final hill and started to reel Todd in, but he saw me coming and took off upon my approach.  Nice.
• Curiously, Shannon didn't seem to be into the ride today for the most part.  It's always hard to tell if he's saving it for something else, pities us, or is actually not feeling it, which the latter rarely happens.  Despite this, he was generally still with us during the ride.  I just kept wondering when he was going to blow past us.  
• Going up Spyglass, we got separated at a light where Todd and Jaffe made it through the rest of us didn't.  
• Vin, Shannon and I were staying together during the climb and we saw we were slowly reeling Jaffe in after he'd dropped off from Todd's wheel.  Shannon challenged Vin to catch Jaffe before the crest...and he did.  I tried to keep up, but gave up enough to latch back onto Shannon when he passed.  We all regrouped at the top with Todd.
• We made our way to San Joaquin and down toward McArthur.  As we approached the intersection, Todd had gotten ahead of us and lined up for the turn with a car behind him.  The rest of us lined up behind the car since we couldn't get by safely.  
• Once we cleared the turn, Todd had taken off and had gotten a pretty good gap on us.  I took the first turn to work toward reeling him in, but Shannon ended up closing the gap altogether.  
• Vin was behind Shannon and tried to pass at one point, but had difficulty (ha ha).  He tried again as we got closer to the intersection, and I ended up launching from behind him to finish that segment #2 for 2015.  :)
• We regrouped at the light and took off together toward Bison with Todd leading.  There were cars doing sketchy things, but we still managed to move at a pretty good clip despite this.  
• The first light was red, so we slowed for that.  Once green, it didn't take long for Shannon to launch an extended sprint that started from before the first light.  I took off hoping to latch on, but I could never really close the gap enough to maximize the draft.  I looked back at one point hoping someone else could help me, but there wasn't anyone close behind us.  Ultimately, I popped like many of the countless pimples I had as a child.  It was gross.  

Thanks for coming out and another workout, gents!