Well, I finally made it to the Tuesday Delaware ride -actually almost didn't make it. Around 4:15 I called Jax, who lives in the Delaware area, to see if he was riding since the forecast was looking bleak. "Storms coming!" he replied, "planning to ride inside on the trainer". Looking at the dark skies and strong winds outside my office I was seriously thinking of bagging the ride myself. However, the weather forecast for the next several days looked terrible so I decided to take a chance and drive to D-town and see what would shake out.
On the outskirts of Delaware light drops of rain fell on my windshield and I again considered passing on the ride but pressed on to the parking lot behind Beehive Books. I pulled into the parking lot and no one was there, so for a 3rd time I seriously considered skipping out on the ride. I made a pass through the parking lot and planned to leave if I saw no riders when suddenly who should appear on his bike but Gus. Right after that I saw Dave Chambers drive in and decided we would have a ride after all. With 15 minutes left until ride time I changed into my gear in the car (always to be done with caution in a public parking lot) and quickly readied my bike.
Rolling up to Beehive to quickly fill my water bottles I saw 5 other riders including Andys, Mark Ames and Ben. Butch also walked to the start from Breakaway to give us some words of encouragement before we started. Four of the other AWOP Riders were sporting their new kits which looked mighty nice. I left my new kit at home because I didn't want the expected rainy weather to trash it on the first ride. As it turned out the weather and the roads stayed dry.
After a few greetings in the parking lot we rolled out. Heading north toward Prospect we were cruising along at 29-31 mph because of the strong tailwinds so I knew the ride south would be brutal. When the group turned to the west we had our first taste of headwind and our group of 6 was whittled down to 3 including Andys, Dave and me. I could tell I was the weak link in this smaller group but worked as hard as I could to do my share of pulling as the route headed south into the strongest portion of head wind.
The 3 of us rode well together and I was close to being red lined most of the time we were headed south. I felt pretty good sheltered behind Andys or Dave but the head wind was a crusher as I came through for my pull. Ride time was approximately 2 hours and the average was around 20.5. This was a good gauge to tell me how more fitness I need to find before things get really crazy when we have larger groups in the upcoming weeks. I can't wait!
No comments:
Post a Comment