Abandoned

We are definitely back to the hot and muggy summer weather around here, and this morning was not exception. I really noticed how dark it is already getting at 6 a.m. The tail light will soon be back on the bike, I'm afraid.

Today I didn't stop at the usual meeting spot. I was supposed to meet Robin to get him to sign some event permit forms for Rocktoberfest. They were safely sealed in a ziplock bag in my jersey pocket and I figured I'd try and catch him at the playground and get that taken care of before the ride, but he never showed up. He called later in the morning to say he had been up late dealing with family stuff and needed to sleep. So there you have it! Robin does sleep. Who knew??

Anyway, the group arrived soon and off we went for the Thursday long ride. When the pace got up to 24 or 25, Ronnie started letting the guys who had just pulled off into the paceline in front of him. Soon, we were down to about six riders pulling and everyone else kind of stuck behind Ronnie. Now if you're going to be doing this, at least do it near the back - not 6 riders from the front. Well I handn't signed on for a team time trial this morning, so after a few pulls I dropped all the way back despite Ronnie's "get in." Tim did the same. Eventually, though, I went back up toward the front. You know - for the exercise.

I guess we were rolling mostly at 25 mph all the way out, with a big surge toward the end. As usual, riders started dropping off about half a mile before the turnaround, so there were only maybe five of us who did the whole distance, I think. Anyway, after we turned around we could see riders who had turned around early way, way down the road already. VJ took off ahead of us, and the remaining four rolled along easily for a while, as is usual. Normally we regroup here. However, for some reason the riders who turned around early didn't wait for us today and before we knew it they were about a minute down the road. Yeah, we were a little bit pissed. We upped the pace a bit, first to 23, then to 24, then to 25+, but we weren't closing much.

Soon we picked up VJ who had never been able to catch either, but he came off the back after a while. Well, the four of us could have had a nice enough ride, except that three of them turned off at Williams Blvd., so now I was alone. Abandoned. No way I was going to catch solo, so I backed off, eventually catching Dan, who had gotten a late start today and wasn't feeling too good, and Ronnie who had come off the back of the main group. We waited up for VJ at that point too.

So I think I'm heading up to S'port late tomorrow, somehow, for two road races they're having up there. Not looking forward to the long 5-hour drive, though. I hope we have a good turnout.