BH Ride Report

Great ride. Lots of people showed up. We had close to 30 or so. I thought it would be bigger, but a lot of the guys who usually meet up with us out by the golf course weren't there.

As we were climbing in one section early and heard the unmistakable sound of cleats hitting the pavement. I yelled "RIDER DOWN!" The group sat up for a second....then laid into it.

It was Ara. He got boxed in or something and hit the deck. I floated back to see who it was and saw him rocketing back up to the group. many of the team members floated back to help but he didn't need it. In the end it just left a bunchof guys off the back at a bad time for them. Ara even told them "don't wait for me (save yourselves)."

Speed wise is was slow to wind up. I was planning on leading all of the 4/5's that wanted to ride slower by taking all of the short cuts. I was 1/2 way through the first turn where I was supposed to go straight for the shortcut and missed it. That's when it started to get a little faster.

I was hanging pretty good, but found myself in the wind swinging around in a weird middle section trying to hold on. I held for a while but then my mind just said, "save it" so I sat up and coasted back.

That was when the group hit McDonald Rd and they were GONE. We ended up with a group of stragglers. Alien3 from the penny rd ride was with us. He told me CyLoew had gotten a flat and was out a long ways back (oops....). He said he felt bad for not stopping, but we all know what kind of ride it was. I still felt bad I didn't stop even though I didn't even know until many miles later.

Colorchange, RR, myself, alien3, and some tri guys made up this group. I was feeling good and was looking to take some hard pulls. We started kind of rotating well. I was pulling at 400-500 watts when on the front. We were hauling butt around 30mph all the way down McDonald. We took a shortcut and ended up in front of the main group for a majority of the ride.

Some of the tri guys weren't pulling through and when they did they weren't really pouring it on. That ended up with myself and RR and Colorchange doing a ton of pulls. We ended up really tired by the time we got back into the wind. We started a constant rotating 2 line paceline. Even that died after a few miles.

The group caught us and we motored on in the big pack. Nice. Hit Townhall in the group. It was like a gun went off. Those guys attacked it like date on prom night.

The rest of the ride found alien3 and myself limping back. We made it back into the group when we got back into town. Nice ride. Fast, but it has been faster. Fun. 40+ miles. Even with the soft pedaling in town I averaged over 20mph for the whole ride. Haven't looked at the power data but I am sure it is brutal.

CyLowe and MJH2 came rolling in together. Nice move by MJH2. He's always been good like that.

Now...trail ride with little P this morning. Hit the shop in the afternoon...racing in Madison tomorrow and hopefully Sunday as well. Here's to a good and safe weekend for everyone!
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