The Weekend Rides...

Just a quick post about some of the riding I did this past weekend.

With no races and plenty of beautiful weather, I got in two solid days of riding with the GCC'ers. Saturday we left from the southern part of town and ended up with about 70 miles. A lot of rotation throughout the day made for a relatively quick pace and sore legs. Alex Price was Mr. Aggressive on the day, attacking at every sprint sign (even when nobody else noticed there was a sprint). We finished by coming in on 441 across the Prairie. There wasn't any kind of finishing sprint, but the heat and wind left me feeling pretty worn out just the same.

Sunday saw a good turn out on the North end of town considering that it was Easter morning. I thought that services would surely take a portion of our normal attendees, but that apparently wasn't the case. Scott and Ed had shown up to the Chevron at 8:00am thinking that we had changed our ride time, unfortunately for them, that change is still a couple of weeks away. Rodrigo was dressed up somewhat like an easter egg in his blue and pink Lampre kit which added a little Easter flair to our ride. There were reports that insead of sprinting to the city-limit signs we would stop and look for hidden Easter eggs...but that turned out to be untrue, so Huan sprinted anyway.

Everyone was in the mood to keep the pace civil, so we just rolled along enjoying the weather and the more social aspects of group rides. Soon after the rest stop Jayson (on his TT bike) and Huan rolled off the front in what I'm sure they thought was an attack, but to the group (who maintained our blistering 19 mph avg.) it was just Jayson and Huan getting in some heavier training.

Once we came into Alachua via 241, Ed Joy upped the intensity while climbing Mebane Hill. That turned out to be the catalyst for the attacks, splits and chases on the remainder of the ride. We regrouped at the light waiting to cross 441, but the splits came shortly after when Ed once again rode past me as I was setting the pace on the front over a little roller. I didn't respond so as not to validate his decision to increase the speed. Moments later Scott Pfaff and Danny Lyons jumped across to Ed and it was obvious that the three weren't waiting for the rest of us. Cindy Tompkins pulled through, but that was it...I think everyone else was still looking to end the ride the same way it had gone throughout the day, nice 'n' easy.

Danny came back to the group, then Julie Ficker and Alexis Debroski shot across to the two leaders just before we got to Millhopper Rd.. The gap was opening while Cindy and I did a two-person rotation in an attempt to bring the group back up to the leaders. Julie must've burned all of her matches to bridge the gap because she returned to a now dwindleing chase group shortly before we got to the I-75 overpass. Daryl Tompkins and Ryan Saylor, who had been content with keeping the ride easy, started to work with Cindy and I (probably out of pity). The four of us weren't letting the front three get away, but we weren't pulling them back either.

Ryan rolled away from us just as we were coming up to the overpass and I knew our chances of catching them were gone. However, the benevolent Mr. Saylor sat up and waited for us and made us a deal at the top of the climb. He said that he would catch the leaders for us, but one of us (now only 3 left; Cindy, Julie and myself) would have to win the sprint. And with that, Ryan set off on a 4-mile TT at 28-30 mph, dragging the three of us along in his draft.

Needless to say we caught Ed, Scott and Alexis within the final mile. They looked pretty spent and after a moment of looking around at each other Cindy went. Feeling compelled to not let Ryan's stellar pull go in vain, I followed Cindy for some added insurance. Nobody really followed us and our end of the deal was upheld.

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This post turned out to be longer than intended, but at least you've had a little 5 minute time-waster...Now BACK TO WORK!