As I pulled up to the Rosier's, Ron mentioned that he was tired this morning. We headed out with sun to our backs and quickly the "tired guy" set a pace of 21mph. Personally, I think he was sandbagging. We kept this pace for most of the 1st half of the ride with the exception of hitting EVERY red light. As we traveled West on Elliott, it was as if a street sweeper had been there hours before! Smooth and debris free.
We headed north along the 101 frontage road and the right lane was blocked making the bike lane huge. This was alright!
We turned back into the sun to head back along Guadalupe. I should have known something was up when all the bike lane dudes had been ground off in the bike lane. Then came the "bike lane closed ahead sign. Turns out they were re-surfacing the street. The asphault was new, but not smooth. As I drafted Ron, I contiuously had to spit out asphault that was being kicked up by his back tire. Maybe I should back off I thought. I did. This rough asphault created much more rolling resistance. We were working to maintain our 17+mph pace.
After the rough road, I decided that it was time for a sprint. These sprints that I do on our rides are fairly short, maybe 20 seconds; but during those 20 seconds I go ALL OUT. Pedaling as fast as I can, I shoot past the team and actually hit 27.1mph! Unfortunately whatever gas was in the tank at the time was gone. I may have even sprinted on fumes. I was cooked. A little PowerBar goo and a bit of drafting, and I eventually recovered.
As we headed South down Recker, Kate took the lead again. In the sprint bars and hammering, she brought the pace back up to 21mph. I considered another sprint, but didn't think I had anything left after the first. Once we were 3/4mile from home, I went for it! Pedaling as hard as I could, I hit 28.9mph. I pretty much coasted home after that. Ready to start the work day.
The funniest thing I saw was an older lady walking a BIG german shepard (that's not the funny part). In her left hand, she held the leash and the little bag for poo. In her right, was the biggest can of mace I've ever seen. I swear it was about the size of a can of spray paint! The neighborhood where we were isn't by any means dangerous, I don't think. Besides, it was the morning time in broad daylight. You woould think if anyone was going to start trouble, they'd think twice with this big dog. When I saw this, I actually laughed out loud a little.
Useless ride stats:25.71miles total
28.9mph max (me)
17.7mph avg
1:27:29 time
80*start temp/85*end temp
All in all, an awesome ride!
