Summer Again

Sunday Giro heading out along Lakeshore Drive

By the end of the week I was thankfully back to just jersey and shorts in the morning, which probably saved me ten minutes and got me to the rides a little earlier than usual. Tuesday was a little odd in that I skipped riding in the morning because things were a little wet and road in the afternoon instead. It was, at least, warm, but there was a strong north wind blowing which meant mostly crosswinds out on the levee. The wind kind of kept me a little more honest than I'd otherwise been since it required a certain minimum amount of power just to keep from falling over, and meant that what might have turned into an easy evening sightseeing ride was instead some kind of a moderate zone-2 thing. 

Wednesday was a little cooler, and although I did pull out the arm-warmers and base layer, I could have gotten by without them. The WeMoRi featured some of the same generally north wind as had the prior day, which resulted in the group being somewhat split up somewhere along lakeshore drive before I got there. There was still a decent enough sized group when I jumped into it, but I wondered for a while why there weren't more riders. When I jump into the group along Marconi I never know if it still includes everyone or if it is some kind of breakaway or if the group just shattered along the lake and that's all that's left of it. In this case, I think the latter was the case. Anyway, it was a good enough workout. Thursday we started with five or six and ended with two or three, which made for a harder ride than you might think if you looked only at the speed. 

The weekend for me was just two Giro Rides. With the wind now shifted around to the southwest, Saturday's Giro seemed fairly fast with the speed rarely dropping below 25 mph all the way out to Venetian Isles. I did a fair amount of work on that ride since the group wasn't quite as large as usual.

Sunday was noticeably easier than Saturday had been, but probably just because the wind had finally died down a bit. The group was smaller than usual, but there were still enough people at the front looking for a workout that it was still pretty fast. I made a couple of big efforts along the way, particularly at the turnaround and between the bridges on the way back. In both cases I was basically closing, or trying to close, big gaps that I was on the wrong side of. I was feeling pretty decent on the way back along Hayne Blvd., and went up the first overpass fairly easily, but as we came over the top someone ahead of me let a gap open as the speed suddenly ramped up to 36+ mph. I put in a hard effort but was losing ground until Brandon came by and I jumped onto his wheel. He pulled me up to about 50 meters from the front group before pulling off, and although I may have closed it a little bit more I never really got close enough to catch the draft. I still made an effort over the bridge, rolling past a few riders who had blown up before the top. It was a good ride, but I found myself all weekend wishing I'd been racing instead.