The almost-normal winter weather around here has been pretty rider-friendly lately. Granted, the mornings have been chilly, but things have been warming up into the 60s later in the day. So Saturday morning I rode out to the Giro Ride knowing that half of what I was wearing would be coming home in jersey pockets. Hanging out at the coffee shop before the ride, Rob was busy recruiting riders for a long Giro out to Slidell. A handful of the guys were up for it, but a number of others were already planning on doing that on Sunday instead. As we rolled out toward the lake I was glad I'd dressed so warmly.
Although there was a big group, the pace was a bit restrained, at least by Giro standards, and although there were a few fast stretches, for the most part the group stayed together pretty well, at least until the last kilometer before the turnaround. Those who were "going long" were trying to avoid doing too much work too early, and those who were planning to "go long" on Sunday were, I guess, keeping that fact in mind.
One thing about the Giro sprints that really bugs me is that there are always a few riders who are up near the front and look like they are going to go for the sprint, and then without warning just sit up in the middle of it, usually when I'm on their wheels. So as usual I ended up behind a big gap and didn't sprint. It still feels a little too early in the year for me to be going for the sprints, but I was feeling pretty good on Saturday and had been thinking I might give it a shot. Oh well. It was a good ride anyway, and I finished it off with a good effort to the top of the Seabrook bridge. My legs reminded me of that effort the next morning.
Even before starting Saturday's ride I had already decided that I was going to do the Sunday northshore ride. It had been quite a while since I'd been able to make it "up north" for that ride, but I was getting pretty overstocked on Giro rides and really needed a ride in the country. So Sunday morning I got up early, walked the dogs, loaded the bike into the car, stopped at Starbucks as they were opening the doors, and drove over to Puccino's to see who was going to show up. I picked up Mario and we headed across the lake right on schedule. By the time we were ready to roll there were 23 riders, including Mike Lew and John Dias. It felt pretty cold, probably because I had kind of compromised in the wardrobe department. The sky was clear, and although it was quite windy I knew it was going to get a lot warmer. Most of the group was obviously looking for a fairly easy winter ride, but as usual there were a few who were having a lot of trouble with that concept. One thing about a ride with so may people is that you know people will get dropped and there will be a lot of regrouping stops. Just after Enon this ride has a traditional "nature stop" at Dummyline road. A few of didn't need to stop so we just kept rolling easy. I found myself chatting with John as we soft-pedaled along and soon realized that we were going a little too fast. I sat up and looked back to see riders scattered all down the road. Unfortunately, each little group was now chasing the other. It was quite a while before everything came back together, and I think a few riders really had to chase hard.
After a while John and a couple others rolled off the front and everyone else just let them go. The next time we saw them was in the parking lot. So anyway, there was a bit of stop-and-go for the next twenty miles or so, but a number of riders took shortcuts or headed back early, so eventually we ended up with around a dozen. We'd been fighting nagging headwinds and crosswinds most of the day, and it wasn't until we were past Plainview before we finally got a little break. Naturally the pace picked up a bit, but for the most part I'd have to classify the overall ride speed as "moderate" with a few brief forays into "fast" territory. Anyway, that all worked out fine or me because I was dealing with achy legs for the whole ride. Nothing very severe, just a subtle reminder that I had done a little hard riding the day before.
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