Christmas Lights

It was a little cooler and more windy this morning, but I'm starting to get the feeling that the days of shoe covers and winter jerseys are rapidly coming to an end around here. As I crossed River Road and started up the levee I looked ahead and noticed a lot more flashing red lights than usual. When I got up to the group I could see why. Jeff was wearing a safety vest festooned with flashing red LEDs. If he'd had a few green ones in there he would have looked like a christmas tree! Actually, there was a big group up there today. I'd say around twenty when we started. Considering who was in attendance, and factoring in the crosswind, I knew it would be a pretty hard one.

We weren't much past the Playground when suddenly the pace shot up. It was nothing less than an attack. Before I knew what was happening there was a huge gap and six or seven riders were already rolling off the front. I finally started to chase, but immediately found myself alone, in no-man's-land. I was going almost flat-out but wasn't gaining on them. Suddenly Robin showed up and we worked together for a while, but the front group must have been going somewhere in the 28-30 mph range and was slowly slipping away. Eventually we eased up and a few more riders caught up. Donald came to the front and did a few of his characteristic long pulls, but the best we could do was limit the damage. At the Dip, Woody, and Tim turned around, leaving Rob, VJ, and Brady (maybe one or two others). At that point our group began closing the gap, absorbing a couple of dropped riders along the way.

So I was thinking that after the turnaround we would all regroup and have a more steady paceline for the ride home. Well, not quite. I guess the crosswind and earlier pace were taking their toll because within a couple of miles the group split again, so it was basically a rather loose team time trial all the way back with Rob, Brady, VJ, Steve, Rolan etc. I think a bunch more eventually caught us when we started to ease up after Steve and Rolan turned around. VJ was causing havoc today. Maybe he was doing intervals or something? Anyway, I was pretty gassed by the time I got home today. I'm hoping we can get some people out to the Lakefront tomorrow for an evening edition of Wednesday Worlds. We'll see.