Eels all up in there, these days. I chose not to do a podcast last night. I gotta be honest, Iggy is *so loud* that I can't imagine it working. Then Utah gets louder with Iggy being loud. Eric hung for a few then checked out. Brad came by just after to grab his stuff. It was a good night.
Started with myself, Utah, Eric, & Iggy at the shop, 5:15 - other notables are Jim, Esnes, Goret, Jeff O, Jon, Scotty, Mundi, the HAPPIEST FUCKING COLAVITA GUY ON THE PLANET (sarcasm), and later Ed. Maybe 15 in total to start?
Out of the shop I pull for like 10 minutes to start, which is hard into the wind. Utah pulls too and feels how much it sucks. The wind is brutal. Somehow after the next light I'm pulling again. Usually Jim would help but why is it always Utah & I pulling for the first 15 minutes every week? None of the other guys seem to want to. Again, Jim was hiding, and started to inch up front and I yelled at him not to because of BK this weekend.
Through the 4 way stop and Utah is out front again. I'm trying to help him become a better roadie so as we pitch up the hill I tell him to take it easy a bit. He's burning a bit of a match here, while everyone hides before that first climb. I tell him to set his pace because nobody wants to jump yet. So do what you need to in order to remain comfortable.
First jumper is Eric, and Jon follows, and a handful of us go. My legs are much better today than the first few rides, and they allow me to respond. I don't hammer to keep on their wheels because I feel no need to. Esnes comes up next to me and I jump on his wheel. Esnes and Ben are probably 2 of the best wheels to follow in all the land. I found myself on Chris a bunch of times yesterday. Given the 2 I'll take Esnes, simply because he's bigger and offers awesome protection. I draft with him and we pick the pack of 5 back up. I think Eric, Utah, Goret, Ed, Scotty, and Jon were there, plus Chris & I. We hit the stop sign and go left, I sprint out front. My legs feel good. Scotty leads down to the condos. In the condos I jump ahead and take us to the light.
On Burnt Mills all hell breaks loose. It was confusion. I'll leave that discussion to Jim's thread since it's been hashed out there. At the sprint point I realize I'm way in the wrong position. I start to try to make up spots but there's a dead rider on the left close to the double yellow and I play it safe and pull up. The group reforms and we head out to the extended loop part.
On the rollers Eric & Jon hit it and I'm all over it. My legs are solid. I can now feel some form coming back, and it feels good. I'm being really aggressive up to this point. I suspect this will bite me in the ass eventually. But I stick with those 2, then jump past Eric and move up next to Jon. I leave it there, sort of a check on his move just to show I can stick there. Into Whitehouse I ease up, Eric pushes again, Esnes comes out front, and I jump on his wheel. It's a theme for the day.
Down past the dairy we jump past an 18 wheeler and my legs aren't happy. I almost dangle but manage to hide. When the push goes up the slight hill to crest to the 2nd sprint, I just sit in and hide a bit. Utah tries to bridge and I eat his wheel for a bit, but ease up to save myself. We regroup after the sprint, and roll out to start Lamington, the full version.
I don't know how many we are at this point but we are cooking now. No doubt we're well over 30 for the first half mile, as we have a slight downhill and tailwind. As the rollers start we have a good pace, and on one of the big ones I feel bad for whoever is 5th in line after Colavita, Esnes, myself, and Utah. We crest the hill at that point, and whoever the 5th is likely hurts like hell. We've been pushing a bit.
Here the group breaks a bit, with Colavita and Esnes dangling. I make a major mistake here and try to bridge that, but not with mush gusto. I figure it will all work out, and just let myself get punished in the wind. We come back together and we are really cooking now. Somewhere in there Jim makes a jump, and we're in a sort of slingshot-paceline where the right side is literally going 5+ mph faster than the left at some points. I get caught in a bad spot and instead of hiding properly I expose myself off the right, with the slingshot leaving me for dead. I can't cover and dangle off the back.
I press on, keeping the pack in sight but murdering myself to do it. Eventually I pick up Mundi who has been wheelsucking Jim for the last however long. I follow suit, then jump in front to close the gap as we all hit route 206. If they had gotten a green by chance, we would have been broken off.
Liberty Corner is odd. Utah & Eric go up, I need to sit in after that effort. My power is 300w for the ride, which includes the warmup. I sit on Esnes again for the *whole* climb. He drags me up, and I'm happy to sit there. As it flattens he ramps it up and I'm still there, and we drop whoever else was in line. On that last pitch up, he stands, and I finally use what I have to jump in front. Incredibly, he stays on my wheel and we crest together. We trade pulls down the backside, something like 400 pounds of man & bike barreling down at nearly 40 mph. We are trucking, I mean hauling ass. We worked extremely well in this section. We worked very well together all day, actually.
We almost bridge up by the stop sign but then get sort of caught out at the 4 way stop. Jim managed to catch back up and brought Mundi with him. After the 4 way I jump in front to try and bridge the gap and before long realize that I'm alone. Not for long as Chris (yes I keep switching between his first & last name) is with me, and we roll up at the traffic light to the group, then roll right through past them. They yell at us.
Into the condos I push the pace again, looking to continue to blister the group. Eric is on it, and Esnes is as well. We manage to pare it down to 7 I think by the end. Utah, Eric & I split off to head back to my house for some lasagna.
My legs are coming around, but not quite there yet. In a few weeks these rides will be nothing short of brutal. This one was an indication of where we're going, and it's pretty good stuff. I think Jon is off a bit. And I think Esnes is in the best form I've ever seen him in on the bike. I don't know what he's training for, but I certainly see him coming back into the shape that got him to cat 3. He's strong as an ox. When I first met him in 2010 he was in Ironman mode. Now, he's really coming into solid shape.
Good stuff, I love that I'm back in the mix after a year off.
PS. No time to proofread. Have a meeting in 2 minutes.
