Big Group, Fast Ride

When I decided to try and get a few extra minutes of sleep this morning I knew I was taking a chance. Sure enough, the next time I glanced at the clock I had fewer than 10 minutes to get my sorry ass out to the morning training ride. Impossible, of course, but I went for it anyway and as I made the climb up the levee I was surprised that the group was just pulling out. I was probably 5 minutes late, so it's a good thing that they left late because I was not in the mood for a 20-mile time trial this morning.

The group was really large today. There were at least 25 riders as we rode under the Huey P. Long bridge, and as I drifted to the back, the speed started to ramp up. It was nearly ten miles before my turn at the front of the long paceline finally came up, and by then the group was rolling along at around 27 mph. I put in 60 or 70 strokes and dropped back, ending up around the middle of the paceline that, by now, had been short-circuited so that half the group could sit in at the rear. We flew down "the dip" and through the usual rocks and gravel that wash onto the bike path down there, and a couple of miles later things started getting kind of mushy. For a while, I couldn't tell if it was the front or the rear, but it didn't take long to become clear that the front tire was just about flat. A big piece of rock or shell was stuck in the center of the tread. It was probably only a couple of miles to the turnaround, so I waved everyone past and Robin and I stopped to fix the flat and take the opportunity to spray our glasses with water to wash out all the sweat.

We finished well before the group came past on its return trip and when it did we latched on. The pace was still high, and there were a few sections where I was seeing 29 and 30 mph. I was watching one of the bigger riders a couple of bikes ahead of me. Sweat was dripping from both ends of his handlebars like a badly leaking faucet. I wondered how he could possibly carry enough water to break even. People really do vary a lot when it comes to sweat volume. My body seems to be fairly good at regulating sweat so that even when it's quite hot, there aren't copious amounts of body fluids being wasted. Other riders just seem to have an "on" and an "off" switch, and when it gets hot they just pour water the whole time. They're easy to identify in the pack because they're the ones who have both a camelback and two large water bottles.

It just started raining! Hard. Maybe this will cool things off a bit, but more likely the sun will be out in 15 minutes and the city will feel just like a sauna for the rest of the afternoon. The temperature is down to 90 F, but the relative humidity is showing 60%, making the "heat index" 99F.