Weekday Triple

I was feeling a bit tired this morning as I finished up the weekday triple - 26mi. Wed. morning; 24 mi. Wed. evening training race; 44mi. Thurs. morning training ride. There was a decent but still inexplicably small turnout for the training race yesterday, but I felt like it was a good workout for me even though I had it easy and drove out there in the car instead of riding from home. It was still quite windy, and although you would think that the upwind stretch would be the worst, I think it was the downwind stretch that caused a lot of the casualties. With the wind in our faces, riders were reluctant to come to the front and the pace would surge, then slow down depending on who was attacking. The tailwind stretch, however, stayed pretty fast, and it was easy to motor along at 27 mph on the front, although the slight crosswind would put the last few riders into the left lane at times.

For the most part, the pace wasn't too hot, but there were some really fast bits that split things up so that by the mid-way point there were probably only six riders left who hadn't been dropped and jumped back in. Although Tim flatted at the end of the first lap, he was back in the group pretty soon and he and Howard were busy keeping things animated most of the time. It seemed like everyone made at least one futile solo effort yesterday, but nobody was successful. Over the last mile I found myself on The Howard's wheel, maybe five or six riders back. Tim was taking a long, long pull, so it was as if the whole group got a nice leadout for the sprint. As we came over the levee with about 400 meters to go, I noticed Howard shift down one cog and of course shortly thereafter he jumped. About the same time, Noel, who was up near the front, also jumped, but by the time Howard pulled even with Noel, he was on top of that huge gear, and between that and the tailwind he was already going about 35 mph. I was sitting on Howard's wheel and when he pulled even with Noel, I switched over to Noel's wheel for the duration. I think Howard said he maxxed out at almost 41 mph. I checked my computer and indeed I had a max of about 40.

Tailwinds sure are fun!

This morning's long ride had a nice turnout, and although the pace definitely kept us in "training effect" territory, it wasn't too severe. I had decided before I arrived that I would criuse at the back for most of the ride since I could still feel my legs from yesterday. There were really only about four guys who were pulling when the pace got fast, but when it would settle down everyone would rotate through. There's been this big patch of broken glass for the last few days, and once again when we rolled through it on the way back BJ flatted. Robin had already stopped to try and clear it off, so after the flat was fixed and the group rolled on, I stuck around and rode in easy with Robin, who just can't understand why the group keeps riding over the glass every day but never stops to deal with it. By the time I got home, my rear tire was going soft! Of course, Rob keeps lecturing about Mr. Tuffy's every time someone flats. Maybe one day I'll actually buy some. They're actually a pretty good idea for your training wheels, although of course you'd never want those extra 113 grams of rotating weight in your racing tires.