Wow did we have a great ride Saturday! There were 6 people who rode with us. One gentleman was as fit as a fiddle (small, muscular and light, a mountain climber) and could out ride us in a split second. He sprinted several times to various road markings including hills and flat windy sections. He was looking for a team to ride on for the Longest Day. He might have ridden with my team but we would have slowed him down way too much. He's now going to ride with a friend's team. They're supposed to ride faster. I'll venture a guess that the team will be split in two at some point and that my friend will be in the slower team. He always pushes it and then bonks midway only to recover later on and go like mad. Either way I wish the best of luck to them, hope my friend doesn't bonk and rides his fastest double century ever!
As for the rest of us, we did pretty well. I still didn't have my new computer yet, it's a VDO C3 DS Wireless Cyclocomputer w/ Wireless Cadence and it's back ordered until the 15th, I'll be riding the Longest Day the 16th so I won't have that computer. Instead I'll wire up my Cateye Astrale (w/Cadence). Without my computer I have a tough time telling what I'm doing I usually go by heart rate, cadence and how I feel. Lately I've been going by my heart rate and how I feel. It's worked out OK but I miss the cadence. Remember that you still need to give your mind something to do on these rides. Anyway the other riders were dealing with the heat (except the sprinter, he likes the heat too), the pace and the wind. We had a rather odd wind from the West and North. Normally we experience a West and South wind which means that we end up with a bit of a tail wind on the way home. We had a head wind and that was causing problems. Early in the ride I had to control the pace and slow down the riders while they had a tail wind (long rides require a conservative approach unlike my friend who bonks on much longer rides). They weren't happy but we were beginning to ride outside ourselves'. Meaning we were pushing the pace past what we could do into the head wind later on. So I did a bit of nagging though it seemed another rider was the problem. I owe him an apology as he save the pace by requesting we slow down (he's a smart ride leader also). I've been busting on him for his past slower pace but yesterday's 17.8 mph average says he's doing fantastic. Three weeks ago he could barely keep 17.0 mph avg over 100 miles. Now he's doing 17.8 and he seemed more much more comfortable at that pace. We're going to have a good Longest Day ride next Saturday (2007/06/16) and our pace should be on target for the 17's. Overall our pace line worked went well, the ride was hot and windy (~13 mph with higher gusts) and we still did well. Wish we could have ridden as well as well as our sprinter. :-) It would have been fun to try but there was no way we were going to be able to.
One more little thing, my fellow riders were busting on me for one of my training tools, my Camelbak. It's a Ventoux, which is just short of a full fledged all day back pack. I just throw everything in there and I don't worry about it. It probably weighs at least twenty pounds. I'm detailing it's contents on my Camelbak Ventoux page. There are pictures and a list of it's contents. For the Longest Day I'll unload it's contents and just keep the bladder (a 2L version, not the normal 3L version), 2 tubes, the air pump, cell phone and my wallet. That should lighten it up significantly.
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