Thursday's Ride (8-11)

The word is spreading! This "grass roots" blog is bieng talked about, it's being read, it's being scrutinized, it's being enjoyed and it's even being envied (Jayson). Hats off to those of you who faithfuly read and comment...you are the ones that make this blog worth writing; cause if it weren't for my faithful viewers, I'd just be puttin words on screen for myself to read...and if I'm the only one readin, I could be talking about my true love....musicals! (did I type that out loud?)

I got a call from a GCC member earlier tonight requesting the URL address of the blog he has been hearing about. I realize that some of you are shy and don't like to be put in the spotlight (no, I'm not talking about you Huan) so I won't tell you it was Tony (refer to the post titled "Hot, Hilly, Hard and HOT!" from july 18th). But this just shows that people like to hear about what's going on in the local cycling community.

Anyway...

In this evenings ride, there were only 6 of us at the start: Ira, Carl, Ed, Mike R., Scott and myself. We picked up Huan in Alachua and lost Carl somewhere before we hit Chestnut Hill.

We maintained an easier pace and opted for a route without all the climbs that 241 offers. Still averaging a respectable 22-23 mph we came to the bottom of Chestnut and Huan jumped. I went after him and noticed my speedometer was reading 22mph on the way up the catagory 1 climb (that's the G-ville catagorization). Unfortunatly I popped like a balloon once I passed Huan. Everyone regrouped on the decent and we headed for home, all except for Huan who headed back to Alachua where his car was parked.

We linked up with Anthony just before the left turn onto Millhopper, so he was lookin to do a good lead out. Just as we started going up the I-75 overpass on Millhopper, Scott had a very timely flat. Even though we were within 6 miles of the finish, nobody had a problem escorting him over the climb at 10mph into the San Felasco trail parking lot to fix the flat.

Carl caught up to us as we finished the repairs and we were off again. Anthony went to the front and got us back up to speed quickly. At the end, Anthony was on the front pulling hard, Mike jumped from 5th wheel. I was sitting right behind him and saw the attack soon enough to respond and stayed with him as he ramped it up over 30 mph. We were still a ways out so I didn't figure on him taking it all the way in, but he did pull me to within about 150 yards of the sign when I jumped. Ira was on my wheel so I lowered my head and burried it all the way.

Good ride for all of us. It seemed to be a bit darker at the end of the ride tonight. We probably have only a couple more weeks of 40 mile routs, then we'll have to cut it a little shorter in order to get home before the street lights come on.

Thanks for reading...