SMCC Saturday Ride

Crit and I both had to start from the school on Highland as he had to be at Funtown with his son at 10 and my BW and I had to meet Captain Dale at Lost Shaker of Salt II by 11. This removes the neutral sections of the ride but also to my benefit removes the annoying little hill from Broadway to Highland.

I felt pretty good that morning but Crit said he felt like he had a rock in his stomach and his legs were tired. Could have been left over from the rainy ride on Thursday. I wish I could ride as strong as he does when I feel like crap.

We jumped into the group at about 27 miles an hour. Nice way to wake up your legs. Things went pretty smoothly outside of the random guy who showed up with a backpack and a bike pump sticking out of the pack. The first time he went through in the pace line he just sat up until someone yelled for him to pull through. This would be a recurring theme.

I felt good and took my turns in the pace line as we headed to Blackpoint. Crit took a flier off the front about 1 mile before the fire station hoping to catch people by surprise. He did as he quickly jumped out to about a 30 meter lead, unfortunately for him there was a fire truck in the middle of road stopping traffic so that break was for not. For some reason he decided to break again right after this but two guys went with him meaning I had to bridge the 15 to 20 meters so he wasn't on his own. Once he realized the break didn't take we sat up and waited for the group.

The plan was for me to give Crit a lead out from 500 meters but we got caught a little far back and on the outside so I went with about 800 meters left. I did pull him to the front but we came from so far back that too many people saw it and caught on. Crit did give me credit for stringing out the group though and as I pulled off he simply sat in for a 100 meters and then blasted by the 2 or 3 guys in front of him for the win. He sounded pretty happy to have his lead out guy back even if I am not quite where I was a few years ago.

The rest of the ride went well and I just sat in as much as possible while taking a couple of short pulls. With about 1.5 miles left two of the better riders (I know them as Hank and Dixon) went off the front and had a gap of about 100 meters. As I was coming up the last hill near the Portland Headlight I realized that I had a lot more momentum the 10 guys in front of me so I pulled around them and just kept going. Of course who was causing the slow up? That's right the guy with the backpack. So knowing I wasn't going to contest the sprint I figured I would do my best to pull the pack back to the break. I gained about 80 meters in the 600 to 700 meters I pulled for and got some thanks after the sprint for closing the gap. I even helped Crit by pulling the pack back I allowed him to shoot past a lot of guys and he finished 3rd.

Good times and then even better times on Lost Shaker of Salt II for about 10 hours and a couple of hours in the Old Port with my BW, Kelly B, Crit, his fiance Jrock and Chimp Hands. If I can get my hands on the video of Crit and Jrock dancing that is going straight to youtube!