You Never Know

You never know what the Giro Ride will serve up each weekend. All metro group training rides are like that, I guess. There's the weather, of course, but then there's also the rider mix, the traffic, the time of the year, what races are coming up, and how much coffee the riders have just consumed. Today, for example, was an interesting mix. When I stepped out the door promptly at 6:10 am this morning, it was like stepping right into a sauna. Not a regular sauna. A sauna with a 25 mph wind. This was no ordinary wind, either. It was strong and gusty - the way it gets just before a thunderstorm, only there was no thunderstorm. I rode with Jon and a strong tailwind to meet the group at Starbucks, and by the time we got there I was already pretty warm. Iced coffee was called for. Lenny's slipping seat clamp was tightened - twice.


We took Lakeshore Drive this time, at least from Marconi to the London Avenue Canal. It wasn't the most direct route by a long shot, but at least we avoided the torn up road at the start of Leon C. Simon. Things were already getting a little jumpy as we climbed the Seabrook bridge and the headwind hit full-force. As I passed Mignon I looked over and said, "It would be a good idea to stay near the front today." By the time we came down onto Hayne Blvd. I knew it was going to be a hard ride. Despite the wind, Woody was clearly in attack mode and before I knew what hit us a split developed and a group started rolling away. For once, though, there was some serious interest in chasing and we got a pretty decent paceline going before the gap got totally out of hand. The break hovered out there at maybe 20 or 25 seconds for a long time until Mike W got on the front and pretty much towed the rest of the chase group up to them. I don't really know exactly what was going on behind, but the group had already gotten dramatically smaller. The pressure never eased up very much until we were nearing the end of the service road and Erich stood up to close a gap and ended up with one foot unclipped and a dropped chain. I pulled up behind him as he was trying unsuccessfully to get the chain back on and pushed him along while he bent down and put it back on the hard way. Luckily, the group waited for us on Chef. Highway before resuming the torture session.


I was feeling surprisingly good today, especially considering how bad I'd felt the prior two days. Maybe it was just the caffeine. Even so, the crosswind was just absolutely brutal and I spent a lot of time looking for that elusive sweet spot in the draft as our group hammered its way to Venetian Isles. After the turnaround all of the survivors finally regrouped for a little while. It didn't last long, though. With the crosswind coming from the left, most of the group was soon walking, or riding, the tightrope between the white line and the dreaded rumble strip. The sprint for the Goodyear sign was conducted largely on the shoulder of the road. I put in a good effort up the casino bridge, but didn't really have much left for Seabrook. By the time we were back on Lakeshore Drive (what's left of it) the front group was down to an even dozen.

I have to admit that as hard as today's Giro Ride was, it was still a great ride. A lot of it felt a lot like a race. Since I didn't have a race to go to this weekend, this was good!

I'll miss the Giro tomorrow because I'm conducting an Officials Seminar on Sunday. We should be able to make a few new officials. Hopefully they will sick with it for a few years and make the effort to officiate some races because we're running really short on officials lately.