Weekly Beatdown

Today's beatdown was luxurious.

It was about 97 when I rolled out for my little warm up loop. No matter what direction I was facing, there was thunder to the left and right but no rain or even dark clouds above me. I somehow managed to get done way ahead of schedule and got to sit around at the bike shop for like 40 minutes before the B1 roll out. Much better than the debacle a few weeks back, but I guess it means I could do a longer warm-up loop. In theory that means I'm getting faster? We'll see though. I don't know.

Matt was there again this week, and Rob. Rob wanted us to join him with the A group but it gets back so late, I can't meet my family for trivia at Mia's on time. Not today.

The group was small, probably because of the heat and potential for rain. Well, it was hot but we never got rain. We did get the next best thing though. On the other side of Sawnee, it had rained, and was drying up, but the roads were super steamy and humid, for pretty much the whole route.

In the hard right leading into the Hendrix Road climb, some dude drifted way out of his line and pushed another dude over into the other lane. Dude number two asked dude number one to watch his line and dude number one lit into him all the way up the climb. Pfft! If those dudes had energy to talk, they'd better have energy to counter. I attacked, 4 or 5 guys bridged up, including dude number two, and we held maybe 20 seconds on the main group until getting stopped by traffic at the next intersection.

The rest of the ride was fairly uneventful, except for how fast it was. We rolled up Elmo like it was just another random road. I think too many of us have been watching too much of the Tour.

Near the end, I misjudged how much space I had, trying to fill a gap that was opening up on my left, and moved over on a guy, but he was gracious and later me and that same guy burned ourselves up trying to catch the leaders coming down off Sawnee. It just doesn't seem like I've gotten my money's worth unless I'm broken down and crawling in at the end there.

Matt held on the whole time. I shouldn't say held on, he didn't appear to have much trouble at all. I don't think he used his little ring, or for that matter, any of the top 3 in the back either. He's singlespeeding ORAMM though, so I imagine that has something to do with it.

Yay, another beatdown for the books. I'm feeling good. Maybe next week will be an A-group week and put me in my place. Hah.