4/18/08

A scheduled hard day. Our team is sponsored and in part an extension of a club Portland Velo. So the team rides out of Longbottoms coffee on the Westside every Saturday morning. But there are a bunch of groups that leave about the same time. Sometimes the same route as the team but all different paces, 15 mph to Hammer and Nails, and then us. As if Hammer and Nails wasn’t rough enough. Today was the Timber route an out and back that is one of a few rides we do that isn't 1000’ of climbing for every 10 miles, but close enough. 68 miles and fast. I wanted to test my legs to see how they would hold up against some of the toughest riders we have. I felt pretty good all 3.5 hours I was climbing with the lead group on the first climb and stayed with them through the descent I was happy with the pace and how I felt today. I remember looking back at Steve Brown at one point thinking “You know I have some legs left and I'm pulling these guys, I wonder how everyone else is feeling.” Let me tell you that sometimes you shouldn’t look back at riders sometimes their faces will tell you info that you didn’t want to know. These guys were just pacing the hill, me, and waiting for someone else to tow them up the hill. ALL of them had plenty of gas to go harder, but we played half wheel hell all the way to the turn around. The return trip was worse. I made the first group again on the climb and got dropped on the descent. I am a horrible descender. I am better than I used to be but still not as good as I need to be. The first switchback I was in the bunch and a touch of my breaks and was spit out the back. I spent the rest of the rollers trying to catch back on. I hooked up with Jason Flemming after he caught me at the bottom of the descent and we worked our asses off trying to catch back on but just as we got with in about 2 or 3 hundred yards someone went to the front of that 8 man group and started ripping everyone’s legs off shelled one rider and pull that group away from us. He put 1 min on us by the time we were back at the store. We regrouped at the store… and something fascinating happens at the interludes and at the end of our rides. We all stop and talk about how we put the hurt on one another, laugh about, and start it all over again, sometimes you’re the hammer sometimes you’re the nail. Good times. But we rolled out back to Longbottoms about an hour away. I knew that there were a few ex 1’s and a few 2’s in this group but not by name or recognition really. I now know that one of the guys I swear looks like Palo Bettini, Brian maybe. But I worked my way to the front for this last real bump in the road on the way home and it ended up working out perfect the guy right in front of me pealed off at the bottom of the climb and I hammered it with about everything I had. Ha, this Cat 1 guy was on my wheel at the bottom of the climb. I didn’t even look back, I didn’t hear any wheels, any heavy breathing, then just as I was about ¾ of the way up, I hear “I think we dropped some people”, I look back and that Cat 1 guy is just sittin’ on with a smile. Dam I can’t imagine what it must be like for pro's.