Week #8: Ouch!

What a great ride!

The weather forecast was less than stellar, so I prepared for a soggy, windy ride. Shawn made his way down to ride with us this week, and must have brought the good weather with him, as it turned out to be a great night (although slightly windy!)

We set off with a good group of riders (35ish?) and slowly upped the pace until we were left with a group of about 8--myself, Shawn, Ashby, Steve, Fraser, Ian, Drew, Brian, Fernando and... that might be it (sorry if I missed anyone?) rode most of the night together. For a while, we rode a nice rotating paceline and the average speed increased steadily, from under 30 to 32.4 by the end of the night. Apparently when Shawn and I are grinding away on the front into a headwind, we're not allowed to chat--when we did, Ashby and Steve would pull past and up the pace yet again! At one point Steve was on Shawn's wheel and waving me to pull through and I could hardly keep up, let alone pull through! Shawn put in a couple of monster pulls, including the longest leadout ever (7kms?) up to the the railroad track sprint. Again, I was barely hanging on to his wheel here, and didn't have much of a sprint left in me, but the leadout gave me enough of an edge to take Steve while a train rolled across infront of us (remember kids, never try to sprint a train!)

In the BSW department: Ashby took Mott's Mills, where my legs had NOTHING. Shawn took two impressive wins, one without even knowing it was coming up until much too late (at least, much too late for anyone else to win!) As mentioned above, I took the railroad track sprint over Steve after an incredible leadout from Shawn. I'm not sure what happened to Ashby here...I guess he was off the back because he knows the railroad track sprint doesn't count?!? Yeah.. that's it ;) Seems to me Steve at a blue sign win too, although I can't recall..?

All for now... remember to let me know if you're interested in joining the TdF pool!