There was a small but capable contingent for this morning's assault on Red Bluff. Joining Jack and me were Jay, Rick, Kyle, Jason and Jaro for two laps of the infamous 30+ mile circuit in the middle of nowhere. Starting out without a warmup, we hit the first long climb about a mile from the start and although the pace was civilized, it was far from easy. Rick spent most of the day OTB, having been sick recently, and a couple others were yo-yoing off the back on the climbs. We waited at each intersection to regroup -- at least on the first lap. For much of that lap I was thinking that we were going a bit too fast considering the distance we were planning and the fact that the course offers little in the way of recovery. After we finished the first loop, we stopped back at the cars to refill water bottles and eat and whatever else these guys do. I just drank some water and rode around in circles until they were ready to roll again. This time we did the same route, only in the reverse direction. It because quickly apparent that the first lap had done some damage. My legs, already a bit sore from the weekend Giro rides, were holding their own, but every time the pace would pick up on the climbs, of which there were many, things would start to come apart. I think I visited every gear on the bike on this lap, from the barely adequate 39x23 to the 53x12. My derailleur had not seen this much action in a long time, and I got in a lot of practice with my shifting technique that involves pushing the well-worn old lever a certain way so that it won't lock up. Took me a year to figure that one out. Anyway, there was a lot of suffering going on during the last lap and although I never did quite peg my pain meter, the needle was well into the red on more than one occasion. I particularly remember one place on the back side of the course where we came screaming down this hill to a little bridge or something and then within maybe 100 yards I was out of the saddle in the 39x23 going 11 mph trying not to hit any of the other guys precariously weaving their unsteady paths up the climb. You almost couldn't shift fast enough for that one!
By the time we turned onto the last long stretch that included the White Bluff and Red Bluff climbs, the speeds had dropped considerably. For a while Jaro and I were out in front. Then Jaro disappeared and Kyle showed up. Jay and Kyle had been chasing for a while -- I think they had inadvertantly gotted gapped off after the turn. Eventually it was just me, Jay and Kyle, and as we neared the Red Bluff climb we lost Kyle again. By the end, it was hot, hot, hot. That dry Mississippi kind of hot. Probably somewhere in the lower 90s, with salt caked on your face and that dull dehydrated look in your eyes. Now that's what bike racing is all about! I was glad I had gone, though. This kind of ride is just so far removed from the Giro. Even though we had stopped mid-way, and had spent a lot of time soft-pedaling and waiting for guys who had been dropped to catch up, I think everyone was pretty well cooked by the time we finished. The forecast is for more of the same - lows in the upper 70s and highs in the 90s with nothing but hope for rain. We haven't seen any rain in the city in a very long time now. That's bad because when the ground around here starts to dry out like that things start to shift around and settle unevenly, resulting in cracked walls and broken underground pipes. And people wonder why our roads are so bad! Try building a road on top of gumbo.
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