Killer Road & Mtn bike Rides!!

That is how I felt about the last 2 rides. First up was the Tuesday Vista View ride. I was expecting myself to put in some work today, because I was not ready for what Chris Fredericks did last week. He attacked right from the gun on last Thursday and the group was under pressure the entire time. I was a part of group of 7 or 8 trying pull it back, but the group fell apart every time we got close. We eventually caught him and his break away companions, but I was cooked and ending up sitting in and taking it home from there.

On Tuesday I meet the group on Saddle Club Road at I-75, and I got a tap on the arm, and it was Bob McCarty. He thought he blew is knee out 10 days before after having to jump over Matt Hammond that had crashed at Markham. He is back at it, and said he can ride hard but is not totally back.

Today I was ready for last weeks kind of attack, but it didn’t happen, so I decided to “Set it Off” myself. My sprinting campaign is officially over, and I’m only into hard, long attacks off the front at this point. Just pass Bonaventure the pace was at 28mph, but we had a tailwind so I made a jump and looked down and I was going 33.2mph and I stayed over 30mph for about 1 minute and it slowly went down to around 28.5mph. It took the group about 4 minutes to catch me. The group had to be a little shattered when they caught me because no one went off the front. I looked back and a Bike America rider had just gotten on my wheel, and I look around at him to pull through, but he didn’t. I attempted to make a surge, only to sit down, and he stay on my wheel again. OK, he must be hurting but does not want to let me get away, and nor does he want to pull through.

I look over at him, and he smiles, and I say “I see you breathing heavy”, and he says "I don’t have to pull through". I said, “I know because you can’t”. We get to Glades Parkway and we are at a stoplight and he is talking Spanish and a guy looks backs, and I say, “He’s talking about me”. From there the tone was set, I’m going to mark this guy, and dust his ass in the sprint. I get back in rotation near the front and he is marking me, GREAT, I take a long hard pull, and he barely takes a pull at all. When we turn East onto State Road 84 there is a headwind, and it’s fierce. I take my pulls and start organizing my position. About 1 mile from the sprint point, my Bike America guys does a hard surge and the group breaks up. I jump in behind a Asian guy in a Weston Flyers uniform that is bridging the gap. We keep it steady even though we are at the limit. He keeps dangling on and off the guy's in front of us, and I make an attempt to move up and he snaps at me. He says “I can bridge it”, and I say, “Stop freaking dangling then”. Now, I have another annoyance out here on the road. He is a big boy though, but wild and unpredictable on the bike. Once it kind of breaks loose I ride up beside him and I’m waiting for him to go for the sprint. A guy with a Cartel uniform on jumps and the Asian dude says, “That’s your wheel”, and I go. I time it to perfection. I pass him 10 meters from the line and have enough room to look back for my new Asian friend. He is in the group and didn’t even go for the sprint.

I’m jacked up and ready to rumble, but my heart rate is 187bpm , and I need a couple of minutes, which I know I don’t have. Blain Reeves comes by with the Flyers dude and they are drilling it. “Shit”, I’m not even close to being recovered, but Bob threw me a lifeline. He came right up in front of me, set a nice pace and brought the group of 12 riders right back. I was hurting the entire time with a heart rate of 177bpms, but was able to get it down to 170bpm by the time we got to Weston Road. I thanked Bob for his kindness, because he knew I was hurting.

The week before at this ride Chris F. put in a huge attack going over I-75 and it shattered the group. I saw Blain go up to the front at the base of the overpass. Halfway up the climb Blain guns it and Asian dude is on his wheel. The guy in front of me is out of the saddle trying to bridge, but he is not doing anything. I come around him and hit a gust of wind, and I’m not sure if I’m going to make it or not. Blain and Weston Flyer dude are really hitting it hard, and I’m not going back to the group so I turn myself inside out over the top of the climb. I look down and my heart rate is 190bpm. My heart rate has never been over 190bpms if I’m not sprinting. I still haven’t bridged yet and they are kinda coasting down the hill and I gun it some more to get to them, but it feels like forever. This is the type of riding I’m doing now. No more sitting in and waiting for the final sprint. I’m a Cat 3 rider now, and I have to be a more well-rounded rider.

I finally bridged, but I have the worst cramp in my side. I’m suffering but I can at least sit on the back until I recover. Blain has stayed in the front the entire time, and Flyers dude pulls through and he looks around to see if I’m still there. He is continuing to ride straight and Blain is starting to turn right and has to yank his handlebars back to ride straight through and miss the turn. The Flyers dude is not focused and just caused us to ruin our breakaway. I made the turn safely and sat up because I had just lost my motivation. Flyers dude has waited for Blain, and I suspect that he is pulling him back. I let the first group pass me up because I really just wanted to finish the ride at this point. I jump on the back of the second group and that group totally falls apart because everyone is expecting me to pull it back. My work is more than done for the day. A 4 min attack at the beginning of the group, A all-out sprint that I should not have done, only to do another 3min attack less than 3 minute later. I finish the ride in the second group.

After the ride Bob said his knee felt ok and that he wanted to ride the trails at Oleta on Wednesday. I told him I would be up for it, and we rolled back out to Orange Road with Blain in tow. Blain and I turned West and Bob turned East. Blain and I rehashed the incident and confirmed to each other that Flyers dude is not the wheel to be behind even if he big enough to get a good draft off of. He also stated he wanted to get enough points to move up to Cat 3 like me because that category fits his riding style better. He makes a left turn on Weston and I continue on Saddle Club Road back to the car.

I get changed, get in the car, and I have a text message from Mrs. P that I got a UPS from Rotor Cranks. Yeah! My Agilis Crankset from Rotor is in. I can’t wait to put it on. I get to the YMCA to give my private lessons in table tennis only to find out that they are waxing the floors. So I can go home now and drool over my new Crankset. I get home, kiss the wife, play with the dog, take a shower, and have a pasta salad. And then to the true highlight of the day.
My precious!! 3 oval chainrings to rule them all!!

The most beautiful crankarms you will ever see! I don't even want to ride them they are so nice.

The "Self Aligning Bottom Bracket". I can't wait to see what this thing is about. It is suppose to cut down resistance big time, and everything counts.

The instructions!! Yes, I'm going to read through them all.

All Hail! Rotorcrank Agilis Crankset!


Wednesday I met up with Bob Mc and did 2 laps a Oleta. He is coming off the knee injury 11 days before so some of the sections would be a little touchy. He certainly did not ride like he really had a knee injury. Not even 10 minutes into the course, we are hammering along just under race speed. From February until June I have been dropped by Bob on every single training ride we did at Markham. But at Oleta I have never been dropped by him. There are 2 sections at Oleta that I just practically let him go because I don't see it as functional to ride those sections that fast. At this course he just can't drop me. If he does, he would truly have to be riding race speed.

Today was no exception, as he put the hammer down and I held my own. He had to unclip through one rough section and I thought it was a great idea especially with it being his first day back on the mtn bike. We are at the 45 minute mark, and going into Davie's trail, and I let him go because the small block eight's don't like that section. He only manages to put 20 second on me in that 7 minute section, so I didn't see that as much of a lost.

The second lap is a repeat of the first with the pace going fast right out of the gate. I never really like how fast Bob starts the lap but I have adjusted to it, and I guess it's good because it is getting me ready for going high intensity out the gate for the State Series. My Sidi dragons are stretching out because they are soaked with sweat, and I lean over to tighten the strap, but seconds later the straps comes out. I slow down and put it in and zip it back, by this time Bob has gapped so I decided to keep him in my sights and make my move to bring him back in later. I start to pick up the pace and the strap comes out again, and at this point I no longer care about the strap. I want to keep the pace going and eventually bring him back in. I start to bring him back in and I dab and that gives back even more time. I have never caught Bob if he has had more than a 15 sec lead, and this lead is more like 30 seconds. My heart rate is low for the speed that I'm going, and this is really one of the first times that I feel confident that I can catch him. As I come around a turn I can see him on the next bend, and the time is going down 18sec, 15 sec, 12sec, 10 sec. Then, I dab again, and I know I give up about 15 seconds. I get on the bike and I'm sure that I can't catch him now so I just ride. I see that he is at least 3 turns ahead of me now. We go into this section that has 7 back to back switchback climbs. There is fence wire down on the climbs because they are so steep. I decide that I'm going to attack all of the climbs as hard as I can and see if I can bring him back. I hit the climbs with all that I got, and I can see by the 3rd climb that I'm bringing him back. Now I'm entering the same turn as he is at the apex. By the end of the climbs he is now in front of me. During that attack my heartrate went from 161 to 177bpm.

Then something happens that has never happened in over 2 years of riding mountain bikes with Bob. He pulls through to let me lead the lap. Is his knee hurting? Has he blown up? Did I really catch him, or did he slow down? My guess is he didn't want to push the knee anymore. I was already locked in my pace so I came through and kept motoring the same. The one thing I can say that I truly learned from Bob is to always keep pressure on the pedals. I'm not as good at it as him, but I'm much better than I was last year.

About 1 minute later I can see that I have gapped Bob, which confirms something is wrong with him. Coming around a turn I hit some gravel the wrong way and slide out. See, the Kenda small block eights are not a good lateral tire. I get back to the bike as Bob is coming around the turn, and he stops for me. I also take this time to actually put the strap back in the buckle of my shoe as I have been riding without it fasten for about 30mins. I jump back on the bike and my chain is off. I apologize to Bob and he says, " No problem dude, I need the break".

That break is just what he needed because he stayed on my wheel the entire rest of the lap. It is one of the times that he can actually observe how I ride, because I'm always riding behind him. I know I can't get any faster while riding behind him. I'm gonna suggest that we trade training laps. It's boring riding behind him ALL the time. He's cool, and it will break up the repitition. Back to the riding. Once we got back to Davies Trail I told him I was going to do it, but I would do it slowly. He bowed out of doing it, and so did I. I don't really like that trail anyway.

We get back to the car, and chat a little and confirm that we will meet up at Thursday's Road Ride. I get home and download the charts and my thought were confirmed. We road just as fast now as we did in April when we trained at Oleta. The first lap Avg was 11.9mph, and he was riding the same speed the second lap when I caught him. I actually took the avg down to 11.6mph. At his course, those laptimes are blazing.

So after 2 months of not riding with Bob or riding a mountain bike, I was performing the same. Some good things came out of the ride. The first was , I had better performing suspensions in my rp3 and F 100X. The second thing was I had brand new wheels and they roll better than the 2 year old beat up ones I had before. The last thing is I'm 8lbs lighter than I was last year. My technical riding really didnt' miss a beat after 2 months off, which is a little bit of a suprise. Most people come back riding all sloppy, but my goal in the spring was to become a more technically superior rider and I accomplished that. I have truly developed a riding style, and it made coming back to the mtn bike very, very easy. This is my 3rd day back on the mtn bike in 2 months, and the status is that I'm more than pleased. I know I'm going to get faster which is just in time for the State Series. My heartrate was about 5bpm higher than I wanted it, but I know it will come down as I ride more and become more fluid. The only negative aspect is I'm having a lot of discomfort with the Fi'zi:k Gobi saddle. I'm going to change this saddle before the weekend, because it's just too painfully narrow for me.

Sorry the report was so long and drawn out. I'll try to keep it shorter next time.

Pacer Out!