i loved the ride today. fast but doable and felt on a real high afterwards (who needs drugs?). it had a thurs morning ‘ride pace’ feel about it – so that was cool too.
before the ride i was thinking – what’s best? being a ‘wheel sucker’ for the fast group or a ‘leader’ for the less faster group?
i went the sucker option – but i almost missed the ‘big split’ and had to to take a shortcut thru a servo in order to latch on to the fast group. ‘great!’ i thought, just the start i need – going into the orange before we even truly wind up the speed.
i did do some turns up front but kept a close watch on on the old body to make sure i was not going into the red zone for extended periods (my better to suck than get dropped theory).
all in all it hurt but it went quite well. although at one stage brett, dr mark, myself and another chap did get dropped by about 200m and we worked hard together (after some brett encouragement) to try and bridge only to find a flat in the group ahead had worked in our favor. it would have been interesting without the flat to see how the body would hold up without the respite.
lesson here is : in general the earlier you bridge the better. the gap was probably about 20 m at the start and i could.should have hammered it and latched on then.
“Fatigue makes a coward of us all Grasshopper “
we did have a slight altercation with a driver at the start of the ride today. ah yes – another driver coverted to the to the congregation of ‘haters’ – but he was trying to drive thru a group of 45 or so riders – so shame on him…dick head.
i peeled off the group early as we went thru east vic park and headed for home. pity i couldn’t do the coffee shop but again andrea is bringing in the extra lolly doing some private work.
on reflection it is awkward/hard to split the group up into two because we like to stay as a whole. but in the end, this type of ride, if used now and again is great for race training. you have to have your wits about you in al sorts of ways. positioning in the group, speed changes, your own state of fatigue and rolling over doing turns up front (even when the body says “no!”).
ride hard, ride safe