Nice Giro Weather

Well last night we went back to a nice little restaurant on North Carrollton with the neighbors. I refuse to divulge the name of the restaurant because it's small and if everybody finds out how good it is I'll never get a table. Anyway, after two bottles of wine and a split of champagne, we headed back to the house where we found to our surprise we were out of wine! As luck would have it, however, we had an ample store of beer. The ultimate result of the evening, as you might guess, was that I awoke at 5 am, quite thirsty and with a dull headache.

The good news was that the temperature was in the upper 50s, the wind was very light, and it was a Saturday. We'd sent out an email earlier in the week to try and get a Giro Ride group photo so I'd have something fresh to put on the NOBC website, and since I wanted to bring a tripod for the camera I decided to take the car out to the lakefront. I hardly ever drive out to the Giro Ride. Anyway, the weather was really spectacular today and there was a good turnout for the Giro. As we rolled down Hayne Blvd. I kept looking down at my computer because it felt so easy sitting in the draft of the large group. With such a light wind, it was easy to sit in the draft no matter how fast the group at the front pushed the pace. At 27 mph I was practically soft-pedaling. It was all so nice that I didn't really make an effort to get up near the front until the last couple of miles before the turnaround. With a mile or so to go I found myself on Mike W's wheel and when he eased off to avoid hitting the front too soon before the sprint, it was quite a while before I went around him because he kept changing his line rather abruptly, which is the nicest way I can explain it.

After the turnaround the group went slow for a couple of miles and I started getting impatient. I mean, the weather was great, my legs were feeling good, and as George Pou used to say, it was "time to put out the cigarettes!" So I rolled off the front at a smooth pace and soon the whole group was back up to speed. There were a few riders who had slipped off the front before the group woke up, though, and I don't think we quite caught them before the Goodyear sign sprint. I made some reasonable efforts over both of the overpasses today. Coming up to the first one, the Casino overpass, I could see that Mike W. was planning on getting to the top first, but shortly after he took off, Kenny and Bain (?) went flying past. For myself, I felt pretty good sprinting up the overpasses, but backed off before the top, remembering that I was planning on doing a long ride on the northshore tomorrow.

Back at the parking lot I rounded up the NOBC riders who were around and we got Kenny to snap a few photos so I'd have something reasonably nice to put on the website.

Up in Alaska, I just read "March 1, 2006 5:00pm - Jill Homer arrived in McGrath at 4:20pm with a smile on her face according to Bill Merchant. her total time was 6 days 2 hours and 20 minutes."
Being a natural-born blogger, she posted an uptate on her blog from Nikolai, the last stop before her finish in McGrath. I cannot even imagine trying to take a nap in -20F weather where your chemical heat packs freeze solid and can't be activated. Awesome.