| Ride Stats |
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Distance:
66.19 miles
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Altitude Gain:
4,158 ft
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Avg Speed:
17.42 mph
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Route:
Tour de Madison
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Avg Grade: 0 %
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Max Grade: 0 %
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Max HR: 175 bpm
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Avg HR: 136 bpm
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Terrain: Road: Hills
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Bike: custom built Cipollini RB800 Road
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Club: Schuyler County Cycling Club |
| Weather Conditions: Sunny 68 F NE wind @ 1 mph |
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Stayed overnight at a motel on I-81 and had to drive an hour over two mountain ranges to get to Syria, VA for a rolling metric century. Mighty Young Joe made the trip down, and I met him in the parking lot before the ride. There were three hundred people registered for the metric course but unfortunately it wasn't a mass start this year but a show and go. It was forty degrees at the start with the temperature supposedly rising into the fifties by the end of the ride. I had put on leg and arm warmers in preparation for the ride but their sun puts out many more watts then ours and forty degrees with no wind felt pretty nice. Ditched the leg warmers but kept the arms. Joe and I headed out at the middle of the starting window for the metric. First five miles is a one percent downgrade and I tucked in behind Joe and waited to see how my legs would feel today. Wasn't terribly confident that I wouldn't have dead legs like last week once I hit the numerous climbs but was encouraged that the legs felt good yesterday on a flatter course. Joe caught a half dozen or so slower riders before the first climb and we were also buzzed by one faster rider. Arms were cold on the way out but legs felt okay so seemed to be dressed appropriately. We hit the first of a dozen hills and I kept pace with Joe. We had two young riders blow by us on the climb but didn't see any other riders. The course is pretty much all hefty rollers with about four thousand feet of total climbing. We started working a little through the rollers getting good speed on the descents. Somewhere along the way we picked up a third local rider and ended up riding most of the day with him. The first twenty miles of the course is a rolling descent with most of the days climbing happening in the final twenty miles. We covered the first section at around eighteen miles an hour. We were flowing along at a fairly nice pace and spotted a group of six riders a quarter mile ahead. We decided to put the hammer down and catch the group then do some quality drafting. Joe and I traded fast pulls and towed our third wheel up to the group. We found it contained two of the young riders that had blown by us on the first climb of the day. Drafting didn't work out as planned as with Joe and I being heavier riders we were actually having to ride the brakes to stay in the line on the downgrades. We soon ended up in the front of the group and started hammering the downhills. As we hit some of the short steeper sections of the climbs three of the young riders started jumping out of the saddle and attacking them. Ended up playing king of the hill with the boys for a half dozen or so of the climbs and had good legs and held my own in the game. Once we crested the hills we would coast until the remnants of the group caught up and that was usually followed by Joe storming by as he hammered the following downhills. We kept that up until about the halfway point when we stopped at a rest stop. Pickings were slim this year and looked to be mostly crackers. Our original group of three headed out but we weren't joined by the other six. We took it easy for five or six miles and rode two abreast and chatted about the state of the world. Thought the other group might catch up but never saw them again. We were passed by a pair of burners that were doing the forty mile course. They pretty much left us in the dust but then Joe decided he wanted to try and catch them. So it was another mile or two of hammer time before we were able to catch them. We lost our third wheel during the chase. We stayed with them for a brief time until Joe couldn't keep the pace on a long hill and they spun away never to be seen again. I knew I was outclassed and didn't try to stay with them and was quite satisfied to be able to stay with Joe. We caught another group of riders waiting at a stop light and were rejoined by our third wheel. We were around the fifty mile mark and I wasn't feeling too good as my respiratory system was drying out and was having trouble sucking in air. Legs were also starting to tighten up so decided it was a good idea to avoid any more hammering of any kind. We only had the big climb of the day remaining and I had driven it in the truck on the way to the ride and knew it wasn't overly difficult. I let Joe set the pace on that final climb and it was hard enough to drop our third wheel. I did open a gap on Joe over the top of the climb and it did give me the ability to pick my own line on the last nasty, steep, twisting descent. He rejoined me after the descent and we finished off the ride. Picked up our T-Shirts and had a box lunch with an excellent pulled pork sandwich. Had a really good time on the ride despite feeling a bit poorly at the end. Was really pleased with my climbing while playing king of the hill with the twenty year olds and was able to do a couple of good pursuits with Joe. And even better the weather had warmed up into the seventies by the time we finished the ride and we had very little wind to deal with. Nice people and a great course though I would really like it if they go back to a mass start next year.
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