04 May 2006 - Loosen-up!

Tonight I planned to take a short ride to loosen-up as last night was not possible. Upon returning home from Julie's office banquet I had developed my own "natural gas"! It was horrible! Needless to say, after just 10 minutes on the rollers, at about 9:45PM, I had to pull a cyclocross maneuver and jump from the bike to make a run to the throne! Yah, the food was that bad! What was worse was that a co-worker kindly warned me about the food before hand, but I didn't listen and went with an empty stomach. So, after work tonight I set out to loosen-up the legs to prep for this weekend's 12hr. Julie is still undecided as to if she will go. Well, after fixing my front deraileur cable I remembered that there is a group that rides on Tues/Thurs from a place just 10mins away starting at 6PM. Getting home early I was able to get there in time for the start. At first I was just planning to sit-in as the legs were feeling iffy and I didn't want to push it. After the first few miles they began to feel good, and by the first big climb I realized they were great. Sitting in an easy cadence of about 80-100rpm I was able to ride along the front of the pack. Before others began pealing off the back they said we'd re-group in the valley on the west side of North Mountain. Cresting the top I figured I'd stretch the legs on the downhill pushing into the wind to a speed of 48.6mph. I've hit 56mph in the past without a headwind. Re-grouping we headed north the Boyd's Gap to climb back over North Mountain. I quickly found myself spinning away from the group opening a huge gap, enough to take a nature break and still reach the top about a minute ahead of the next rider. Again I stretched the legs on the downhill, this time hitting 49.8mph. This road was a bit bumpy and curvy, and having flat resistant tires (hard compound) at a high pressure I didn't think it would be wise to push any harder than I was for fear of a crash. In all my legs are feeling great and I have a good deal of confidence after this "easy" ride of 35+ miles at an avg pace of 18mph and 2,200 vertical feet of climbing. (Below is a clip of the printout for the ride.)