Saturday 9-10-2011
A bit wet but the weather cleared up rather quickly as the morning brightened up – guess this was why we had a low turnout of TNTs (Pete, Lili, Howard and me) – still got a ride off though as we were joined in the car park by David, his Chinese friend on a yellow bike, my buddy from Anguilla and a tri-athlete who road with us before – recovering from a broken Femur – on an impressive looking Trek.
Anguilla started the ‘warm-up’ lap nicely, 19/21 mph. Pete took over and brought the speed up to 22 mph, Anguilla moved to the back, I closed in behind Pete, nice pace, everything seemed set for a lovely morning ride. The story changed though as Pete took it up at the half way point to 23/24, we can handle this so sucked it up, I was a bit concerned about the newcomers. Before the bridge, Pete slowed and opened to check for water being the good sailor, I took over and maintained 23, passed the USF Prof in yellow and called for him to join. On the straight at the end of lap one, USF Prof attacked with Anguilla on his wheel, I closed at 26mph and we took the bend into second lap. I was behind Anguilla and shuffled to the back, figured I had done my bit and there were others to do some work. Anguilla opened, Lili next, ride steadied at a manageable 22/23, Howard next, pace at 21/22, he opened for David and his Chinese friend on the yellow bike to pace, they weren’t able to pace looking spent from the uneven pace and now spread out across the road. This was when Femur took over and opened a gap of 5 bike lengths or so, I jumped to close, Lili, Howard et al followed and the tempo from here on was hot!
Pace picked up to 25/26, couldn’t enjoy the scenery and wildlife as I usually do, life was focused on staying 2 inches to the wheel of the nice Trek. We were moving fast, past the Morris Bridge intersection, this guy was good but small and there very little draft behind him. After the bend headed to clay gully I had enough, felt the nausea and didn’t want to see my croissant and coffee breakfast again, opened and signaled for Lili to take over only to hear her say we are the only remaining two, all others were dropped – wow! We continued at 21 mph, recovering, Pete joined us and met Femur waiting for us at the start of lap 3 – only 35 mins into the ride and we were already beat. Pete and Femur then had the strangest conversation, they did not know what happened, that the ride had 5 different speeds and they did not know what speed we wanted to ride at? Lili and I said lets continue at 22 – Femur said he will pace at 22 – wondered after if cyclists on tri-bikes see their speed-o-meter as we were back at 23/24 we cranked on until the end.
I turned off after 3 (happy to take my daughters to Taekwondo).
Specs: 3 laps, average 22.4 mph
Lili, Pete and Femur continued for a 4th.
Roger
