Blown!

How many of the blogs over the last couple of days have blow in the title?

Hurray! I've got in 5 straight days of riding! This is a record. Of course, how many hours each was it? Many of the days it was about 40 minutes a couple of days it was a bit over an hour. So all in all, my riding has been fairly productive in getting my heart and lungs in shape.

The last few days I went down to Hains Point. Yesterday Jesse Leifert, pretty much summed it up on his blog Le Amateur Domestique. Yes, it was windy and the Harley and DCVelo boys just made it look too easy. I went around a couple of laps with them and decided to drop after the final turn, where they were supposed to recover. No.. they decided to teach some of us a lesson and hammered away.

Today, I arrived at around 12:35 after a meeting downtown and while getting dressed, watched 2-Speed Chuck and Bryan Butts hammer away together. After I was ready a minute or so, I joined a small group going at an easy pace. I stayed at the end of the pack not trying to cause any commotion. I finally moved up front to see James "Giacomo" Belora leading the pack, he said he had already been going around several times already getting blown. The pace was a bit slow for me so I picked up the pace and then around the curve, bam! I got hit by this incredible wind gust! It almost stopped me in my tracks. It felt like I was starting to climb a steep hill with all that resistance. I just kept rotating my feet around and around, trying to keep a good cadence going. Around to the front side where the wind was assisting instead of hindering me, I picked the pace up again. Nice and steady with good speed. Then again on to the back side, this time I upped my cadence to around 85-90 rpm. It felt easier and I was moving around 16 MPH. Then I hear this cranking sound and whoosh...here comes Chuck and Bryan going around me like I was standing still. They were probably going at an 18 to 20 MPH clip. There wasn't anything I could do. I couldn't suck wheel because they gapped me quickly for me to react. All I'm saying is that I don't know how they can keep up that pace and power...I was just too damned amazed at their continued effort. I can tell that these guys are going to cause some real pain out there this year.