Windy: No Wheelmen In Sight

Nothing like a brisk fall breeze to scare everyone into cowering at home. (Buck, buck, BUUUUUCK!)

Rather than riding alone I decided to try my legs at hanging with the 8:30 triangle group. I waited for them at the corner of Wheatley. A small group – only half a dozen – rode by just before 9:00 and I joined in. By the time we reached Woodbury Road the group had grown to about 20 or so. It included two women and a scrawny teenager. I wouldn't be surprised if the latter were to go pro in the future. They can all kick our sorry butts without breaking a sweat.

A number of them were sporting matching "Triangle Cyclists" kits. Turns out they have a web site with a fancy video intro that looks way better than the rest of their home page.

http://trianglecyclists.com/

I can hang with this group on the flats and the downs without burying myself, but I tend to drop off the back every time they hit a climb and, competitive as they are, start hammering. This happened a few times over the next hour, on the LIE, Stillwell and bumpy. Every time I pushed as hard as I could just to keep them in sight and managed to catch up whenever they slowed down for a light or at an intersection. After bumpy we hung a right at the white church. By the time they started charging up Chicken Valley Road I had nothing left and lost them completely.

Found myself by the moving and storage, spent, and decided to finish my ride by covering some of my favorite routes: duck pond, Horseshoe, Sandy Hill, back through bumpy and white church, then Wheatley and LIE back home. Whenever I didn't have the benefit of a tailwind I had to drop to my small ring just to keep moving along at an easy pace. Eventually I made it home.

Somewhere during my struggle to hang with the group I lost my computer (must have knocked it off its shoe with my bottle), so I don't know my overall average, but I was able to figure out my mileage to 55 for the day by using Google Maps.