The Attack in the Hills...

Sunday (8-21)
I'm afraid that I may have missed my window to acurately depict the happenings of sunday's GCC ride (8-21). But I'll go ahead and throw something up here so that those of you who love to comment will have something to comment on.

• About 22 people on the A ride
• About 70 miles in length
• A civil ride all the way to the rest stop with no attacks (other than a couple of sprints to the city limit signs)
• As soon as we saw the first hint of elevation change...all hell broke loose!
• Strong men on the day were by far Jim and Tony.
• At one point they were the only two pulling at the front. The rest of us were sucking wheel, hoping for the pace to slow so that we could get our heart rates down below 400.
• The group was wittled down to The Elite Eleven by the time we came out of Alachua.
•• If memory serves me correctly the 11 were:
Jim
Tony
Anthony
Lambert
Me (Paul)
Mike
Scott P.
Scott ?.
Jayson
Huan
Ed

• At one point, I noticed that we were ascending a pretty substatial hill on 241 at 28 mph...we crested the hill and only descended at 25 mph. The point is, we went up the hills very very fast!
• In the closing miles Jayson made not 1, not 2, but 3 huge attempts to get away. Each time he was brought back, but kudos for the efforts!
• Anthony was in good position at the end to do a nice lead out for the eventual winner, Jim.
• Jim left sunday evening to return to his home in Chi-town...and we are all going to miss the suffering he put us through...NOT!
• Tony took a hard faught 2nd to the unstoppable Jim.


My mountain bike ride on Saturday
My wife and I didn't even get a mile into the ride and my saddle came off. Confronted with the dilema of calling it a day or persevering with a dilapidated seat, I chose the latter and forged ahead. Going back to the truck would have been futile as I didn't have the appropriate tools to mend my defunct perch.

Long story short: I stood up the entire ride and my calves paid the price. (mental note...bring tool box when going out to San Felasco for mountain biking)